Gazette Daily News Podcast: Monday, Mar. 4, 2024

– Schools flying blind as they struggle to meet new budget deadlines

– CSPS shifts finances, artistic approach for ‘second act’ in Cedar Rapids

– Crop production steady, but drought took a toll

Episode Transcript

Welcome to The Gazette’s Daily News Podcast for Monday, March 4, 2024. This podcast provides the latest headlines from the Gazette newsroom. I’m Becky Lutgen Gardner.

Up first, Iowa schools are preparing to publish the first draft of their budgets for next school year in time to meet a March 15 deadline.

But lawmakers have missed their target for setting state school funding by nearly two weeks. Multiple other school funding considerations are still being debated.

Linn-Mar school board member Brittania Morey said school districts are “flying blind” attempting to create spending plans for fiscal 2025 which begins July 1. But schools don’t yet how much they will receive in Supplemental State Aid. That’s the money the state allocates to school districts.

At last week’s board meeting, Morey said, “We don’t know our main revenue source yet.”

Like many school districts, Linn-Mar is creating its budget and property tax rate around the assumption that the state aid will be set at a 2.5 percent increase, as proposed in January by Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Lawmakers have a self-imposed deadline to pass the appropriation for the upcoming fiscal year within 30 days of the governor releasing her proposed version of the state’s overall budget. This date passed on Feb 9.

Iowa House Republicans passed a bill last month that sets the growth rate for the state aid at 3 percent.

But Iowa Senate lawmakers have not yet settled on their number for the increase.

A new law approved last year — requires school districts to turn in a first draft of their budgets to their county auditor by March 15. That would set the maximum levy rate property owners in the district would pay for schools.

Under the law, county auditors will mail postcards to every resident who owns property in the county, including in it, the proposed property tax rate, the impact the tax rate will have on owners of a $100,000 property, and public hearing dates.

This potentially puts school districts in a position of publishing an initial property tax levy higher than what they would need, said Adam Kurth, chief finance officer for the Iowa City Community School District.

Kurth says that school districts considering reducing staff to meet their budget goals don’t know how many educators could be reduced next year without knowing the state number.

Next, the arts and culture organization CSPS has been working out of deep debt for over a year. A year into the pandemic, the challenges started for the nonprofit.

After CSPS failed to file tax returns for three consecutive years, the IRS notified the nonprofit in July 2021 that its tax-exempt 501(c)3 status had automatically been revoked.

That threatened the CSPS’s ability to function in an already challenging arts landscape. Nonprofits need donors, and donors care that their contributions could be tax-exempt.

Then a shocked board of directors slowly dwindled. By August 2022, all but then-president Monica Vernon had resigned.

A year later, the IRS restored the tax-exempt status. But the organization’s interim director left. Money was getting short as the organization burned through its reserves.

With nobody but Vernon and the organization’s small staff, the growing cry to call it quits suggested it was curtains for the organization. But Vernon wasn’t ready to give in.

Vernon says, “Some people said we should just shutter the thing. Someone asked if we should sell the building.” But I was feeling really bullish about CSPS. I think it’s a jewel in the crown of the district down there.”

Now, with a new executive director, a diversified board of 15 members, and a detailed fiscal strategy, a new vision has taken hold to reset and polish the jewel for future generations.

Finally, Iowa’s 2023 crop production held steady. But some drought-ridden counties suffered losses.

New USDA data reveals some Iowa counties produced millions of fewer bushels in 2023.

Overall corn and soybean production — Iowa’s two biggest row crops — held steady for the state in 2023.

However, new data reveals disparities in crop yields likely due to the drought.

According to the U.S.D.A, Iowa’s average corn for grain yield increased from 200 to 201 bushels per acre from 2022 to 2023.

The state’s average soybean yield dropped half a bushel per acre in that time, leaving the 2023 harvest around 13.7 million bushels short of the previous year.

Mark Licht is an Iowa State University associate professor and extension cropping systems specialist.

He says, the new USDA data released in February reveals trends that defy some of Iowa’s traditionally productive regions.

Most Northwestern Iowa counties saw an extra 10-plus bushels of corn per acre last year. In Plymouth and Sioux counties, that translated to about 10 million extra bushels of corn each compared with the 2022 harvest.

Boone County had an extra 1 million bushels of soybeans compared with 2022

Pottawattamie County produced an additional 2 million bushels.

The Iowa regions with lower crop yields largely overlapped with the areas hit hardest by drought.

After enduring their worst drought conditions on record, most East-Central Iowa counties saw hits to their crop yields and production. Corn yields in Linn County dropped nearly 4 million bushels. Soybean yields also declined by around 8 million bushels.

Licht says aside from small stretches of extreme heat, summer temperatures were mostly moderate, which also helped mitigate drought stress on crops.

Today’s weather: A chance of showers with a possible thunderstorm after 3 p.m. High near 64. Monday night, showers likely. Low of 37. Tuesday will be mostly sunny with a high near 56.

You can find a link to each of the stories featured in today’s episode in this episode’s description, or at the gazette dot com.

Thank you for listening to The Gazette’s Daily News Podcast. I’m Becky Lutgen Gardner.