News from the State House

The 2014 session has come to an end while only going over the deadline by eight days. This is an improvement over the past few years with sessions going well past the allotted days. The House finished up business after a marathon day that started on April 30th and ended at around 5 a.m. Thursday morning.
While the workload seemed light this year, I know we did accomplish some historic legislation. We allocated $25 million for REAP – the highest level ever; expanded the solar tax credits; banned e-cigarettes for minors; and helped children suffering from severe epilepsy and seizures with cannibidoil.
These are all great for Iowans, but I’m also proud of our bi-partisan work to boost our workforce and help areas of the state that are struggling economically.
 With the creation of good paying jobs as a top priority this year, we improved several of the state’s most important job creation initiatives in 2014. The state’s High Quality Jobs program, workforce housing programs, and Iowa Redevelopment Tax Credits all received boosts.
We took action to combine parts of the Enterprise Zone program with the state’s High Quality Jobs program. This streamlining of programs allows the state to move away from site-by-site Enterprise Zone designation to a more uniform distressed county criterion. This increases the number of counties currently meeting the distress criteria from 31 to 45 with both Allamakee and Clayton counties qualifying.
We also modified the state’s Workforce Housing Tax Credits. The Enterprise Zone program currently provides credits to eligible housing projects in enterprise zones. The new program is available statewide if the projects meet one of the following criteria:  repair of dilapidated house, on a brownfield or grayfield site, is an upper story project, or new construction in a community with a workforce housing need.
Iowa Redevelopment Tax Credits are designed to incentivize environmentally distressed or blighted properties. Changes to Redevelopment Tax Credits will make it easier for Iowans to renovate run down areas of their city. This allows these building to be eligible under the redevelopment tax credit program.  An abandoned public building is a building constructed by a city, county, township, or school board for public use and is vacant, blighted, obsolete, or an otherwise underutilized property.
The legislation also makes tax credits refundable for nonprofits and removes the ten percent project award limitation and gives the Economic Development Authority the authority to determine the maximum award amount.
Iowans looking to improve their job training skills and land a good job will have more opportunities after we made changes to the state’s apprenticeship and worker retraining programs.
A new Apprenticeship Training program will receive $3 million annually to train Iowans in a trade or skill. Under current law, apprenticeship sponsors are paid using a formula based on students starting the program. The Legislature altered the formula so that it is based on students finishing apprenticeship programs, which will reward apprenticeship programs with good retention and completion rates.
The Jobs Training Program will also receive $3 million annually. Once received, the money will be distributed to each community college account based on a formula.
Even with all of these positives that the legislature accomplished for Iowans, we failed in one important area, school funding for FY16. The supplemental school aid was to be set within 30 days of the Governor’s state of the state speech, yet once again, the House majority party failed to see the urgency of following state statute. This is the most important matter that the legislature will have to tackle when we reconvene in 2015.
My first assembly representing House District 56 is in the books and I look forward to being your voice for the upcoming 86th general assembly.