Week 15 in the Iowa Senate was a busy one as we worked towards completing the agenda for the year with the goal of ending the session by April 28th still in sight.
The Senate passed SF 391. This bill makes changes to Chapter 12 of the Iowa Administrative Code, giving more flexibility to school districts. Chapter 12 sets the general accreditation standards for public school districts and accredited nonpublic schools. The topics addressed in SF 391 came as requests from Iowa schools. School administrators were asking for flexibility in hiring certain positions, flexibility in the offer and teach requirements, and reducing the number of report submissions to the Department of Education that included repetitive information that has proven to have limited positive impact on student achievement. Senate File 391 begins to address a number of those requests.
The work on tort reformed continued. SF 228 was sent to the governor for signing. The bill sets a $5 million cap on the non-economic civil damages for cases involving malpractice with commercial motor vehicles.
HF 595 helps address the opioid crisis in our state. This bill increases the penalties for the sale, distribution, or possession of fentanyl. Penalties would be further increased if the violation involved sale to a minor or the death of another person.
Real, permanent property tax relief passed the Iowa Senate!
In 2021, the Legislature passed property tax relief for Iowans, eliminating a local mental health property tax levy and moving the funding responsibility from the counties to the state budget. This change should have saved taxpayers $100 million statewide. However, most counties in the state did not pass those savings onto the property taxpayer.
Now, as property owners across the state receive their property assessments, (and suffer the effects from sticker shock) Iowans turned to their legislators to address the issue and to place guardrails on rising property taxes.
SF 569 provides over $100 million in relief to Iowa property taxpayers and is aimed at controlling the growth of property taxes and increasing transparency in property taxes and local government spending.
To help control the growth of property taxes, Senate File 569 automatically reduces levy rates when assessments rise, restores basic levy limitations taxpayers rely on to control spending, eliminates loopholes abused by local governments to exceed limits set by law, and simplifies and consolidates 17 levies. Senate File 569 also bring more transparency to the property tax process and gives property taxpayers more information on what exactly they are getting for their tax dollars.
Iowans all across the state have been looking for property tax relief, especially with the arrival of new assessments over the last few weeks. This bill gets at the core of rising property taxes and offers property taxpayers real, permanent relief.