Iowa Gov. Reynolds pitches state government restructure to U.S. House committee

Iowa’s recent restructuring of the executive branch of state government should serve as a model for a renovation of the federal government, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds told federal lawmakers Wednesday during a hearing at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Reynolds was invited to speak during the U.S. House Oversight Committee’s hearing on government efficiency, a hearing that lasted more than four hours.

During her opening comments and in answering questions from the committee members, Reynolds touted the reorganization of Iowa’s executive branch, which she proposed and signed into law in 2023.

Reynolds said that reorganization resulted in reducing the number of cabinet-level state agencies from 37 to 16, eliminating roughly 600 open positions in state government, removing 1,200 state regulations in the first year, and identifying 4,700 acres of state-owned farmland to sell.

Reynolds also said that as a result of reorganization, most state licensing functions are in the same state agency, and one agency that formerly worked out of 10 different buildings is in one building.

The reorganization has saved the state $217 million in the first two years, more than the Reynolds’ administration’s early projections for the first four years, she said.

Reynolds told the committee that the reorganization also has made Iowa state government more efficient. She said getting a medical license used to take 65 days and now takes three; unemployment rulings used to take three months and now take 11 days; and savings in the Motor Vehicle Enforcement Unit allowed the state to put 100 more Iowa State Troopers on the roads.

The state followed that up the following year by eliminating 83 state boards and commissions, streamlining state IT systems, and consolidating substance use and mental health regions.

“It’s made us more efficient. It’s made us more effective. It is common sense,” Reynolds told the committee. “I think the data is proving out. We’re seeing it every day. …

“We’re taking dollars from the (state) administration and from the bureaucracy, and we’re actually putting it into programs, getting it on the ground, and putting it into people.”

U.S. House Republicans on the committee praised Reynolds for Iowa’s recent government reorganization efforts and quizzed her on the process.

Democrats on the committee spent most of their time criticizing the authority that they say has been granted to tech billionaire Elon Musk as part of Republican President Donald Trump’s plans to restructure the federal government. The first half hour of the meeting was spent on Democrats’ motion for the committee to call Musk to testify; a motion the majority-party Republicans rejected.

Trump has made Musk a member of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Some Democrats also praised Reynolds for Iowa’s government reorganization process, but in doing so criticized Trump and Musk for the way they are doing it at the federal level. Democrats pointed out that Reynolds interviewed state agency leaders, state lawmakers, and hired a consulting firm to plan Iowa’s reorganization. Democrats also said that, unlike Trump and Musk, Reynolds did not employ the assistance of a campaign donor, did not fire any state workers, and did not freeze any state workers’ pay.

Some Democrats on the committee asked questions about a law passed by Reynolds and statehouse Republicans that put constraints on the state auditor’s office; a lack of oversight in the state’s new private school tuition assistance program; and settlements over sexual harassment allegations in state government.

The state in 2019 paid $4.15 million to two women to settle a lawsuit in which they claimed they were sexually harassed on the job by the former director of the Iowa Finance Authority. Reynolds fired David Jamison, the former director, the day after receiving a complaint about his actions.

“Kim Reynolds has a history of wasting taxpayer dollars and blocking the state auditor from seeing how money is being spent so she can sweep expenses that help her friends, donors, and special interest groups out under the rug,” Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson Paige Godden said in a statement. “Today, Reynolds was finally held accountable for her wasteful use of taxpayer dollars to hide a sexual harassment suit that happened under her watch and for her $100 million school voucher plan that helps wealthy families send their children to private schools.”

Reynolds told the committee members that she hopes her state can partner with the federal government as it reorganizes under Trump.

“There’s just so much waste at all levels of government, at the federal, at the state, and at the local levels. And we’re all serving the same constituency. We need to do it better,” Reynolds said. “I’m standing up Iowa DOGE so we can continue to bring the private sector in to examine the way that we’re doing business. Government has to operate more like a business.”

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

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