February 12, 2010

Address: 1734 Chestnut Lane NE

              Cedar Rapids, IA 52402

Phone: (319) 431-6150

E-Mail: renee.schulte@legis.state.ia.us 

Blog: reneeschulte.wordpress.com 

Twitter: twitter.com/reneeschulte

Website: reneeschulte.org

 

In This Issue

	Republicans Introduce Problem Solving Education Legislation
	Legislature Looks to Deter Crime in Disaster Areas
	Putting the Fun in Funnel

Committee

Assignments

Human Resources

Judiciary

State Government

Human Services

Budget Subcommittee

Iowa Council on Human Services

Child Welfare Advisory Committee

Upcoming Events

Public Forums

Saturday, February 13th

9:30 am-10:30 am

 Downstairs Hall

Noelridge Park Church

1147 Clifton St. NE

Cedar Rapids, IA 52402

Topics: Governor's budget proposal and the State Reorganization bill

Saturday, February 20th

By League of Women Voters

10:30 am-11:45 am

Hallagan Center

Mercy Medical Center

701 10th St. SE

Cedar Rapids, IA 52403

Cards will be distributed to the audience to submit questions

Public Hearing

Wednesday, February 17th

by House Labor Committee

5:00 pm-8:00 pm

House Chamber

Iowa State Capitol

TO SIGN UP TO TESTIFY: Call the Legislative Information Office (LIO) at

(515) 281-5129

or visit the LIO office in the basement of the Capitol

Republicans Introduce Problem Solving Education Legislation

This Session Iowa House Republicans introduced education reform bills that guarantee our high school students have basic skills before they graduate, expand public charter schools, promote cost savings at the Regents and protect parents who choose to home school their children;

At the end of funnel week, it appears these bills will not be moving forward:

HF 2323 and HF 2358 - Cost Savings and Transparency at Regents Universities - HF 2323 would require the Regents to consolidate into a single system for information technology, fiscal and personnel management and legal services. 

HF 2358 would do the following:

• Creates a Cost Savings Task Force located within the state Auditor's office;
• Requires the Board of Regents to conduct three public hearings before adopting any tuition or free proposal;
• Limits tuition increase to the most recent Higher Education Price Index (HEPI).  Last  week the Regents raised tuition by 6% for next year despite a HEPI increase of just 2.7%.
• Requires all professors to teach one or more courses during each fiscal year or employment;
• Requires the Regents to include in their annual report the number of courses and an analysis comparing the number of hours tenured professors teach in the classroom compared to the number of hours teaching assistants teach.

HF 2268 - Frontier Schools - This bill creates a new form of charter school in Iowa.  The frontier school would be allowed significant autonomy.  The school would be considered a public school but could operate independent of the school district.

HF 2326 - Home School Assistance Programs - Co-sponsored by 28 legislators this bi-partisan bill clarifies allowable expenses under the Home School Assistance Program (HSAP).  This bill is in response to administrative rules promulgated by the Iowa Department of Education that limit how districts operating HSAP programs spend their money.

HF 2070 - Exit Programs - States are doing away with high-stakes, one-test high school exit exam.  Instead states are doing end-of-course exams in basic skill areas such as reading and math.  HF 2070 moves Iowa toward the goal of ensuring that out high school graduates possess basic skills before they graduate and enter the workforce.

*To view any of these bills go here and search each in the top right corner of the page.

Legislature Looks to Deter Crime in Disaster Areas

When a natural disaster strikes, there are a couple things we know are going to happen.  We know that local government, particularly law enforcement, are going to be stretched thin as they assist the community.  We also know there will be residents who are displaced from their homes, sometimes entire neighborhoods are displaced.

Unfortunately, one of the other things we know is there is a group of individuals always ready to take advantage of the first two situations.  In the wake of a disaster, too many communities find criminals ready to seize on opportunity.  HF 2215 looks to address this by cracking down on crime that occurs in disaster areas.

HF 2215 would double the minimum monetary fines associated with a range of crimes that are committed against or involving "disaster-affected" property.  The offenses covered by the bill include robbery, extortion, arson, reckless use of fire or explosives, possessing an incendiary or explosive device, burglary, theft, and criminal mischief.

While meeting on the bill, it has also come to the attention of the Legislature that illegal dumping has been problematic is disaster areas.  For this reason, an amendment to add illegal dumping and discarding of waste material has been proposed in the House and already adopted in the Senate.

The increased penalties will apply only to a "disaster-affected" property following either a presidential disaster declaration or a governor's proclamation that a state of disaster emergency exists.  The bill defines a "disaster-affected" property as one who has sustained actual structural damage in the disaster.

The increased penalty will apply not only during the disaster, but for 3 years thereafter.  The extended length of time is an attempt to address the reality that the effects of a major disaster like the floods of 2008 are long lasting and people remain vulnerable during much of the recovery.  The bill was voted out of the Rebuild Iowa Committee in the House this week.

Putting the Fun in Funnel

This week was the first funnel in the House.  Until last year, I had never even heard of funnel week.  The first funnel is a deadline for all bills to make it through a committee in one chamber or the other in order to be viable on the Floor for debate.  This deadline was set at the beginning of Session.  In some ways that was better than last year, when we kept hearing of fake funnel dates that continued to shift.  But, being a shortened Session, this funnel came at the end of a very long and busy week.

To make it through the funnel, many bills are passed out as "shell" bills.  Countless times we heard that "this bill was not in a final form but will be perfected before it moves to the Floor."  That is a very scary proposition when you are in the minority party.  When bills "die" in the funnel week, they are rarely resurrected. Yet if a bill is passed as a shell, it is a live round for further debate and vote on the Floor with or without two party input.

To get all of the bills through, we worked long hours and extra days this week.  As if that was not crazy enough, we took on debate of the State Reorganization bill (SF 2088) on the Floor.  That bill had 51 amendments when it hit the floor, one of which was a 47 page, last minute amendment that came on Thursday evening as we were scheduled to begin debate.  That amendment alone, knocked a bunch of amendments out of order sending many back to drafting. 

March 5 is the next funnel.  Bills that survived this week need to get through committees in the other chamber in order to survive.  The work on the budget begins immediately.  With the current budget out of balance and the State Reorganization not saving as much as was previously hoped, the fun has just begun.