Capitol Notebook: Month of family leave for mother advances

DES MOINES — State employees who give birth would have access to one month of paid family leave, and partners would have access to one week of paid leave under legislation advanced Monday by state lawmakers.

The proposal is one element of legislation put forward in a broader health care bill by Gov. Kim Reynolds. In the Iowa House, majority Republicans are tackling the governor’s proposals on a piece-by-piece basis.

A state employee who adopts a child also would have access to four weeks of paid family leave under the proposed legislation.

Under current policy, state workers who give birth must first have exhausted all vacation and sick days before being eligible for unpaid family leave, the governor’s legislative liaison told state lawmakers during a legislative hearing on the proposal Monday at the Iowa Capitol.

“Gov. Reynolds is committed to making Iowa the best state in which to live, work and raise a family,” said Molly Severn, the governor’s legislative liaison. “As a benefit to better support our workforce and their families, the governor proposes to offer state employees paid maternity and paternity leave.”

Lobbyists for two groups, Iowa ACEs 360 and the American Heart Association, spoke in favor of the bill during Monday’s hearing. And both recommended lawmakers expand the proposal to six weeks of paid leave, which is recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

In total, 14 organizations or state agencies support the bill, and none have registered in opposition, according to state lobbying records.

The legislative panel of two Republicans and one Democrat advanced the proposal, House Study Bill 201, which is now eligible for consideration by the full House committee on commerce.

Unemployment benefits

A year after enacting stricter requirements for receiving unemployment benefits, Senate Republican advanced a bill would require Iowans to conduct more job searches to get them.

Senate Study Bill 1159 passed out of the chamber’s workforce committee — making it eligible for further consideration and floor debate this session — on a 7-5 party-line vote, with Democrats opposed.

The bill would require a person applying for unemployment benefits to complete four to six job searches a week to earn benefits, depending on the number of job openings published by the state’s workforce agency. The more jobs available, the more work searches one must complete.

To maintain eligibility for unemployment benefits, Iowans currently are required to complete four re-employment activities each week, three of which must include job applications, according to Iowa Workforce Department.

The proposal also reduces maximum weekly benefit amounts for out-of-work Iowans with three or more dependents. Currently, the more dependents a worker has increases the maximum allowable benefits.

Bill sponsor Sen. Adrian Dickey, R-Packwood, said the bill “streamlines and provides clarity to unemployment benefits” work-search requirements and providing a list of activities that qualify, which mirrors “the services and opportunities offered by” Iowa Workforce Development.

Democrats and labor groups argue it needlessly reduces benefits and introduces barriers for Iowans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own in accessing a public safety net.

Unemployed workers in Iowa now receive 10 fewer weeks of state unemployment benefits under a new law that took effect last year. The law reduced the length of state unemployment benefits from 26 to 16 weeks, making Iowa just the fourth state with 16 weeks or fewer of state unemployment benefits.

County compensation boards

The makeup of the boards that decide county officials’ salaries in Iowa would change and the boards would have to show how they determine suggested compensations under a pair of bills a Senate committee advanced.

Under Senate File 170, county compensation boards would be made up of two members of the county board of supervisors, two residents appointed by those supervisors, and three elected county officers that rotate out every two years.

Under current law, the board is made up of two members appointed by the supervisors and members appointed by each of the other elected county officials.

Compensation boards also would be required to review the salaries paid to comparable officers in other counties, other states and private employment for each elected official before making their recommendation, and they would be barred from recommending a salary lower than the salary an official made the year before the most recent election.

Democrats opposed the measure in the committee, saying it deprived elected officials of their individual voices on the board. It passed the Local Government Committee along party lines, 8-3.

The committee unanimously passed Senate File 32, which would require compensation boards to provide documentation showing how they determined the recommended salaries for elected officials.

House lawmakers passed a bill last week that would allow county supervisors to eliminate compensation boards.