The following is a legislative update from Republican State Senator Doug Campbell of Mason City, representing portions of Worth, Mitchell, Cerro Gordo and Floyd counties in Iowa Senate District 30:
We just ended the fifteenth week of the legislative session, and Tuesday marked the 100th day and the scheduled final day of the legislative session. As predicted and with important work still to be completed, we will be heading into overtime.
This week, a few notable bills that were passed include:
Senate File 274— Cash Entry for Athletic Events; this bill requires that public schools must accept legal tender as a form of payment for entry into extracurricular interscholastic athletic events. It also requires that organizations which sponsor athletic events must accept legal tender as a form of payment for entrance into events sponsored by the organization.
Senate File 473— Foster Care and Adoptive Parent Protections on Religious or Moral Beliefs; this bill adds new protection on the grounds of a person’s sincerely held religious or moral beliefs in relation to their ability to provide foster care or as a prospective adoptive parent. Iowa HHS is prohibited from requiring an individual, as a licensed foster parent or prospective adoptive parent, to affirm, accept, or support a policy related to sexual orientation or gender identity that conflicts with the person’s sincerely held religious or moral beliefs.
Senate File 2428— Removal of Disruptive Students from Classroom; this bill addresses discipline for student-caused nonviolent or violent disruptions in school classrooms. Under current law, discipline of a student relates to making a threat of violence or causing an incident of violence that results in injury, property damage, or assault. This bill changes the responsibility relating to discipline of a student to any event causing a violent or non-violent disruption.
One big topic talked about this week was additional funding for pediatric cancer research. Senate File 2480 implements an additional tax on alternative nicotine or vapor products and appropriates $3 million to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital for conducting pediatric research.
This year, we have talked a lot about property tax relief, fiscal responsibility, and ensuring efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars. Senate File 2500 brings this issue to the forefront. This bill updates a section of code that hasn’t been updated in decades, when townships managed much more at the local level. Now, cities and counties have taken over many of those tasks. To help ensure transparency and give some oversight to yet another tax levying authority in Iowa, Senate File 2500 mandates standardized training for all township trustees and clerks. It also moves many of our small counties to an appointment system for township trustees and clerks.
The legislation significantly increases fiscal transparency by requiring itemized budgets and annual financial reports to be posted online and submitted to the Department of Management. Crucially, it creates tiered oversight. Currently, townships with appointed officials must have their budgets approved by county supervisors, whereas elected townships remain more independent. To ensure service stability and fiscal integrity, the bill prohibits the commingling of township funds by supervisors, protects existing contractual obligations during governance transitions, and requires cities to deposit township fire service payments into dedicated rural fire protection funds. This bill was an important proposal to increase oversight of taxpayer funds, improve training for trustees and clerks, increase transparency, and ease the burden of elections in rural areas.
Senate focused on real property tax relief for Iowans
Progress continues to be made on property tax reform with the House passing an amended version of our bill, Senate File 2472. The House amended their own proposal onto the bill and passed it out of their chamber on Wednesday. While this is a positive step forward to continue discussions, the House proposal has a number of aspects that make it problematic moving forward.
As many have said before, after decades of fixes and tweaks and carve-outs and exemptions, Iowa’s property tax system is complicated. In 2023, the legislature passed the first step in major property tax reform, working to drive down levy rates and start simplifying the system.
A few weeks ago, the Senate passed Senate File 2472 nearly unanimously out of our chamber. It is a comprehensive property tax overhaul designed to replace a complicated, outdated system with permanent relief and predictability for taxpayers. The bill simplifies the tax code by offering every Iowa homeowner a 50 percent discount on the taxable value of their home. Then, that discount increases ten percent every decade following. It also automatically lowers levy rates if property inflation exceeds 2 percent, eliminates the variable rollback system, and implements strict local levy controls to rein in government spending.
While the House moved our proposal forward and started discussions on their changes, one thing was noticeable during the public hearings. We heard from some landlords and developers alleging that these changes would cause rents to increase. Over a decade ago, this legislature heard cries from these same people, saying if they received tax rate cuts for their business, those savings would be passed onto renters and keep more money in the pockets of Iowans. But that is not what happened. Instead, while their tax rate was cut in half, over a decade, rent for Iowans increased. While these businesses got a discount of over 46 percent on the taxable value of their buildings, Iowans saw rents increase by 36 percent. What we didn’t see during the hearings was someone fighting for the everyday Iowa taxpayers or homeowners who have been emailing us, calling us, and meeting with us asking for relief.
The focus of the Senate property tax proposal has always been the Iowa homeowner. They deserve a better deal in our state. We want to encourage and help Iowans achieve the American dream right here in our state and homeownership must be more affordable. For months now, we have been talking about what the Senate’s vision is for property tax reform. We will continue to pursue real, permanent relief that targets Iowa homeowners, simplifies Iowa’s property tax system, and brings important reforms to an antiquated, patchworked system. I look forward to continuing these important conversations and talking about why the concepts in our bill are so important.
When you cut property taxes, you cut the city’s and county’s ability to provide maintenance and services.
Fifty percent of cities budgets are tied to public safety.
We have heard and responded to the desperate requests of citizens to lower their real-estate tax burden. The rate of real-estate tax increase has brought many to a level of outrage.
This gives you transparency into the prevailing circumstances Iowans have to negotiate.
