Iowa Senate Dem’s lay out their accomplishments in 2013

DES MOINES -Iowa Senate Democrats laid out their accomplishments in the 2013 legislative session.

The following is what they said:

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This year, we took a comprehensive approach to creating a state where more Iowans have access to good jobs, great communities, strong local schools and affordable health care.

• We’re ensuring Iowans have access to health care by expanding coverage to 150,000 uninsured working Iowans and making sure mental health services are available close to home.
• We invested $34.3 million in worker training to help Iowans fill skilled job openings at local businesses.
• We keeping tuition affordable at our community colleges, state universities and private colleges so that all Iowans get  the educational opportunities that lead to great jobs. There won’t be a tuition increase at Iowa’s state universities for the first time in 30 years.
• We committed to boosting student achievement with an increase in funding for local schools for the next two years, small class sizes for young learners, and education reforms to raise standards, improve teaching and encourage innovation.
• We cut commercial property taxes—helping small businesses the most—without shifting the burden to residential property owners or hurting local schools and services.
• We’re helping low-income families work their way out of poverty by increasing the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit from 7 percent to 15 percent of the federal credit.
• We expanded job creation efforts, including financial incentives, tax credits, and programs that work with local businesses on technology commercialization, marketing and entrepreneurship.
• We’re improving Iowa’s water, environment and recreational opportunities by investing in programs and partnerships with farmers, landowners and communities.

Ensuring state government works for you

• Balancing the budget without raising taxes. Iowa is expected to have a budget surplus of about $647 million when this fiscal year ends on June 30. We also have $622 million in our reserve funds, the largest amount in state history.
• Freeing up $1.2 million for fixing our roads and bridges through the efficiency of online driver’s license renewal (HF 355).
• Qualifying for federal highway funds for Iowa roads by complying with federal regulations for commercial motor vehicles and drunk driving offenses (SF 386).
• Funding the Iowa Public Information Board to provide an efficient, free method to help government officials comply with Iowa’s open meetings and records laws, and help citizens with questions or concerns about their rights (HF 603).
• Investing in an online database that Iowans can use to search the state’s budget expenditures and tax revenue (HF 638).
• Providing convenience to companies with vehicle fleets by enabling them to renew the annual register on all their vehicles at the same time (SF 386).
• Providing convenience to the farming community by allowing the manure application certification program to be done electronically (HF 312).
• Enabling most Iowans to renew their driver’s license online every other time it comes up for renewal—no waiting in lines, no driving long distances and the convenience of renewing 24/7 (HF 355).
• Adding the option for Iowans to show proof of insurance on their electronic driving record, making it easier to provide to a requesting officer (SF 386).
• Making driver’s licenses valid for 8 years (rather than 5 years) for Iowans between the ages of 18 and 74 (SF 224).
• Allowing Iowans who voluntarily give up their driver’s license for age-related or medical reasons to get a free state ID (SF 224).
• Extending to 6 months the length of time Iowans have to claim the money they’re owed on their vehicle registration fee when they sell, transfer or junk a vehicle (SF 349).

• Putting some of the state’s budget surplus back into the pockets of Iowa taxpayers (SF 295).

Education and job training for a strong Iowa future

• Reducing Iowa’s skilled worker shortage with an investment of $34.3 million in worker training to help Iowans qualify for job openings at local businesses and grow Iowa’s economy (HF604).
• Keeping tuition affordable at our community colleges, state universities and private colleges so all Iowa families have the educational opportunities that lead to great jobs (HF604).
• Ensuring Iowa kids are good readers by keeping class sizes small in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms (HF 215).
• Continuing our commitment to strong local schools by raising academic standards, increasing teacher and administrator effectiveness and accountability, and implementing innovation that improves learning (HF 215).
• Providing a 4 percent increase in support for local schools for the 2013-14 school year and a 4 percent increase for the following school year.This is the money that pays for textbooks, heating bills, technology, gassing up the buses and other necessities (HF 215).
• Encouraging student groups to establish entrepreneurial education funds to invest in start-up companies and products that enhance their experience and entrepreneurial education (HF 533).
• Increasing support for ISU’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, which helps improve livestock health, saving Iowa farmers millions of dollars and boosting the state’s ag economy (SF 435).
• Special one-time investments in educational facilities (HF 648).
  • Community College Fire Safety/Deferred Maintenance – $1 million
  • Regents, Fire Safety/Deferred Maintenance – $2 million
  • ISU Veterinary Surgery Modernization – $1 million
• Investing in education, research and training facilities that prepare a highly skilled workforce (HF 638):
  • ICN Park II Maintenance & Leases – $2.7 million
  • ICN Equipment Replacement – $2.2 million
  • Statewide Education Data Warehouse – $600,000
  • IPTV Equipment Replacement – $960,000
  • State Library Computers – $250,000
  • Tuition Replacement – $27.9 million
  • ISU Ag/Biosystems Eng. Complex Phase II – $21.75 million
  • UI Dental Building – $9.75 million
  • UNI Bartlett Hall Renovation – $10.27 million

Stimulating job creation and economic growth

• Establishing a Main Street business property tax credit that reduces commercial property taxes—helping small businesses the most—without shifting the burden to residential property owners or sacrificing local schools and services (SF 295).
• Cutting taxes for low-income working Iowa families by increasing the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit from 7 percent to 15 percent of the federal credit. Iowa communities would receive a boost in economic activity when those dollars are spent locally (SF 295).
• Increasing Iowa’s Historic Tax Credits and expanding eligibility to encourage rehabilitation of historic commercial properties and business districts (SF 436, SF 452).
• Creating a new tax credit for farmers and other growers that donate produce to Iowa food banks or other Iowa emergency feeding organizations (SF 452).
• Encouraging our next generation of farmers by expanding a tax credit program in which retiring farmers lease or rent land to beginning farmers (HF 599) and giving preference to qualified beginning farmers for leasing DNR-managed agricultural land (HF 457).
• Expanding the definition of agricultural property for tax purposes to include land used for the cultivation and production of algae for animal feed, nutrition or biofuels (HF 632).
• Adjusting fees and other requirements for animal feeding operations that operate at reduced capacity for a time (HF 512).
• Giving local car dealers a say when the big auto manufacturers want to alter the sales territory (HF 395).
• Increasing incentives for businesses to locate and expand in Iowa. Financial incentives were increased to $16.9 million (SF 430), and tax credits were increased by $50 million (HF 620).
• Helping startup businesses grow and move Iowa’s economy forward by providing a tax credit for investment in early-stage, innovative companies (HF 615).
• Increasing support for the Main Street Iowa Program by providing $1 million in grants for building improvements in Iowa’s Main Street communities (HF 620).
• Proving $10 million in tax credits for cleaning up abandoned, blighted or contaminated industrial or commercial properties, known as “brownfields” and “grayfields” (HF 620).
• Providing targeted incentives to businesses in Iowa’s border communities (SF 433).
• Expanding efforts by our universities to spur economic growth when they work with businesses on technology commercialization, marketing and entrepreneurship (HF 604).
• Allowing municipalities to establish reinvestment districts where a portion of the sales tax revenue helps finance the projects that boost economic development (HF 641).
• Improving facilities and infrastructure that boost Iowa’s economic growth (HF 638):
  • Public Transit Vertical Infrastructure – $1.5 million
  • Commercial Service Air Vertical Infrastructure – $1.5 million
  • General Aviation Vertical Infrastructure – $750,000
  • State Housing Trust Fund – $3 million
  • World Food Prize Borlaug/Ruan Scholar Program – $100,000
  • Historical Building Renovation – $1 million in FY14 & $3.8 million in FY15

 Better health for all Iowans

• Expanding health care coverage to 150,000 uninsured working Iowans through a new Iowa Health and Wellness Plan (SF 446).
• Appropriating $11.6 million to maintain county mental health and disability services as Iowa transitions for a more efficient way of providing mental health services to Iowans (HF 160).
• Providing $2.4 million in support for families living with autism (SF 446).
• Improving advocacy for Iowans who are involuntarily committed for mental health reasons (SF 406).
• Allowing licensed pharmacists to administer vaccines and immunizations (SF 353).
• Preventing fraud by providing more tools for Iowa’s Department of Human Services to identify problems, collect overpayments and assess civil penalties associated with Medicaid (SF 357).
• Ensuring kids get screened for vision problems at least once before kindergarten and again before third grade (SF 419).
• Providing funding to inspect and investigate complaints at Iowa health care facilities (HF 603).
• Enabling teens to access tobacco cessation counseling through the Iowa Tobacco Quitline (SF 202).
• Allowing the sale of FDA approved HIV home test kits (SF 202).
• Special one-time investments in health systems (HF 648):
  • Four Oaks PMIC – $1 million
  • Homestead Autism Clinics – $800,000
• Improving our health care facilities (HF 638):
  • Nursing Home Facility Improvements – $300,000
  • Medicaid Technology – $3.4 million FY14, $3.34 million in FY15
  • Homestead Autism Clinics Technology – $154,000
  • Department of Public Health, Technology Consolidation Projects – $480,000

 Maintaining safe communities.

• Allowing Iowans to add emergency/medical information to their electronic record for their driver’s license or ID (SF 386).
• Making it an offense for commercial vehicle drivers to text or use hand-held phones, in compliance with federal law (SF 386).
• Requiring an ignition interlock device for one year for repeat OWI offenders who wish to obtain a temporary restricted license to drive to work and substance abuse treatment (SF 386).
• Ensuring teens learning to drive get supervised practice in all four season by requiring those under 18 to hold an instruction permit for 12 months (SF 115).
• Reducing distractions during a teen’s first six months with an intermediate driver’s license by permitting only one unrelated minor passenger in the vehicle (SF 115).
• Preventing rail accidents and fatalities by ensuring drivers who transport rail crew get the rest they need to do their job safely (SF 340).
• Avoiding wear and tear on our roads by allowing big trucks to raise their retractable axle they make turns (HF 14).
• Requiring criminal record checks of health care employees (SF 347).
• Requiring more criminals to submit DNA samples. Research shows that those who commit property crimes—theft, arson, vandalism—have a high chance of reoffending, and their crimes and violence rates often escalate (HF 527).
• Ensuring effective response to emergencies by providing necessary funding to Iowa’s E911 emergency communications system (HF 644).
• Ensuring children are brought up in safe homes and get the care they need (HF 590).
• Ensuring justice is served by increasing funding for Iowa courts to hire more staff to provide the services Iowans need, such as clerk of court and juvenile court services (SF 442).
• Protecting victims by allowing law enforcement to provide notice of a no-contact order if an officer comes across the offender through a traffic stop, for example. The no-contact order will then be enforceable (HF 496).
• Enhancing safety and energy efficiency by adjusting certain boiler inspection requirements (HF 484).
• Keeping our roads in good shape by providing $352.8 million to the Department of Transportation for facilities, staff and programs (HF 602).
• Toughening Iowa laws to help ensure law enforcement can prosecute and put away sex offenders (SF 298).
• Enabling victims of domestic violence and sexual assault to get the help, advocacy and services they need by increasing funding for Victims Assistance Grants to implement new approaches (SF 447).
• Keeping citizens safe and enforcing the law by increasing funding to Iowa’s Department of Public Safety, the Department of Corrections and certain community based corrections facilities (SF 447).
• Increasing funding for corrections education, which helps offenders earn a GED and other skills that will help them get a job and be less likely to reoffend once they are out of prisons (SF 447).
• Protecting vulnerable kids by investing in Iowa’s statewide Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program, which recruits, trains and supports community volunteers to serve as an effective voice in court for abused and neglected children (HF 603).
• Raising the pay of child welfare providers, including adoptive families and foster care providers. Although these folks do important work to help vulnerable kids learn and grow, their pay has not kept up with inflation in recent years (SF 446)
• Improving communications and facilities that enhance public safety (HF 638, HF 648):
  • $18.7 million to finish Mitchellville & Fort Madison prisons
  • Criminal Justice Info System (CJIS) – $1.45 million
  • Department of Public Safety, Radio Upgrades – $2.5 million
  • Department of Corrections, Mitchellville – $11.2 million

 Honoring our veterans and service members

• Ensuring those serving on active duty remain eligible to receive tuition assistance benefits and attend school once they return (SF 332).
• Providing assistance from the Veterans Trust Fund for initial screening for a military service-connected traumatic brain injury (HF 545).
• Emphasizing the admission of homeless, honorably discharged veterans to the Iowa Veterans Home (HF 544).
• Including a mental health treatment staff member on the care committee for patients at the Iowa Veterans Home (HF 544).
• Providing care at the Iowa Veterans Home for Gold Star parents—that is any parent of a service member who died on active duty (HF 544).
• Transferring $129,000 to the Veterans Trust Fund, which helps low-income veterans get vision, hearing and dental care, durable medical equipment, and emergency home or vehicle repairs (HF 613).
• Allowing veterans to immediately get their veteran status marked on their driver’s license or state ID (SF 224).
• Establishing special hunting licenses for non-resident disabled veterans (HF 361).
• Providing more than $6.5 million to the Iowa National Guard, including an increase of over $700,000 for operations and maintenance at Camp Dodge (SF 447).
• Recording our veterans war experiences with an additional $129,450 for the Grout Museum Veterans Oral History Project (HF 638).
• Special one-time investments in veterans facilities (HF 648):
  • Department of Veterans Affairs, Building Relocation/Renovation – $137,940
  • Iowa Veterans Cemetery, Legion Community Center – $600,000
• Improving our military and veterans facilities (HF 638):
  • Facility Armory Maintenance – $2 million
  • Statewide Modernization of Readiness Centers – $2 million
  • Camp Dodge Infrastructure Upgrades – $500,000
  • Iowa Veterans Cemetery, Equipment Building – $250,000

Enhancing Iowa’s quality of life

• Investing more than $22 million to jumpstart a new initiative that will work with farmers, landowners and communities on conservation practices and other efforts to improve water quality (SF 435, HF 648).
• Establishing an Iowa Nutrient Research Center to provide expertise, technical and research support to reduce nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, making their way into our water (SF 435).
• Increasing funding to $16 million for REAP, Iowa’s successful Resource Enhancement & Protection Program that promotes outdoor recreation, conservation, and preservation of our natural and cultural resources (SF 435).
• Keeping manure out of Iowa’s waterways by adding more inspectors to ensure Animal Feeding Operations comply with the law (SF 435).
• Increasing funding for maintenance and operations at our state parks, which are popular vacation and recreation destinations for Iowans (SF 435).
• Improving water quality by ensuring proper use of pesticides on or near waterways to control invasive species (HF 311).
• Expanding eligibility for rural residents to access funding to improve their wastewater treatment facility (HF 311).
• Protecting renter and landlord rights by clarifying landlord and tenant relationships and responsibilities (HF 495).
• Establishing a lifetime resident fur harvester license similar to what already exists for hunting and fishing for Iowans 65 and older (HF 394).
• Encouraging charitable giving by allowing community colleges to authorize deductions from employee salaries for payment to eligible charities. Cities, counties and school districts already do this (HF 131).
• Encouraging more farmers and private land owners to open up their property to the public for hunting, fishing, boating, hiking and other outdoor recreational and educational activities (HF 649).
• Increasing to $6 million the amount available for Endow Iowa Tax Credits for donations to endowment funds of qualified community foundations (HF 620).
• Making sure workers get paid for the work they’ve done by adding an additional wage theft investigator at Iowa Workforce Development (SF 430).
• Providing more funding for grants for cultural organizations in Iowa (SF 430).
• Special one-time quality-of-life investments (HF 648):
  • Food purchases for food bank organizations – $1 million
  • State Fair Authority, Plaza Improvements – $1 million
  • State Fair, Cultural Center Renovation – $250,000
  • AAU Junior Olympics – $250,000
  • Camp Sunnyside Renovations – $250,000
• Improving our recreational and cultural opportunities and facilities (HF 638):
  • Great Places – $1 million
  • Community Attraction & Tourism (CAT) grants – $7 million
  • River Enhancement CAT grants – $1 million
  • Regional Sports Authorities – $500,000
  • State Park Infrastructure – $5 million
  • Lake Restoration – $8.6 million
  • Lake Delhi Dam Restoration – $2.5 million
  • Water Trails & Low Head Dam Grants – $1 million
  • County Fairs – $1.1 million
  • Recreation Trails – $3 million

SENATE-ONLY PASSAGE – Things we’re proud of that did not make it through the House.

• Going after those who break the law by deliberately evading Iowa’s vehicle registration fees (SF 364).
• Expanding eligibility for Iowans to qualify for tax credits when they install solar energy systems (SF 431).
• Establishing $5 million in tax credits for the costs of purchasing and installing electric or natural gas vehicle fueling facilities (SF 434).
• Providing a state health care tax credit for businesses with fewer than 25 full-time employees (SF 449).
• Putting Iowa businesses first by making sure they get the first crack at state contracts (SF 170).
• Reopening Iowa Workforce field offices to help unemployed Iowans get back to work (SF 430).