Proposed Budget Highlights
The governor said her vision for Iowa is focused on the following areas: supporting success at school; promoting healthy families and communities; building workforce through apprenticeships; aligning government to better serve Iowans; combatting the fentanyl crisis; and protecting state investments. Specific proposals include:
Supporting Success at School
- Providing education savings accounts equal to the amount of state per pupil funding to eligible students.
- Giving classroom teachers a raise by using unspent education program funds.
- Eliminating burdensome or trivial requirements in Iowa code.
- Protecting the rights of parents as primary decision makers.
Promoting Healthy Families and Communities
- Increasing support for pregnant women and promoting the importance of fatherhood.
- Establishing a Family Medicine Obstetrical Fellowship to support maternal health in rural and underserved communities.
- Promoting preventative care by improving access to hormonal contraceptives.
- Providing state employees paid parental leave for the birth or adoption of a child.
- Increasing reimbursement for allowable expenses related to adopting a child.
- Improving the affordability of childcare through property tax parity for commercial and in-home providers.
- Supporting post-secondary educational opportunities for foster care students.
- Increasing funding for Centers of Excellence to improve access to medical specialties in rural and underserved communities.
- Ensuring the availability of emergency medical care in rural communities.
- Limiting liability for medical malpractice.
- Expanding the Iowa Health Careers Registered Apprenticeship program.
- Launching a rural emergency medical services pilot program.
Building Workforce through Apprenticeships
- Expanding Iowa’s Health Careers Registered Apprenticeship programs to include additional certifications.
- Establishing a State Apprenticeship Agency to register and oversee programs and agreements statewide.
Aligning Government to Better Serve Iowans
- Strategically aligning executive branch operations to improve efficiency and reduce the total number of cabinet-level departments from 37 to 16.
- Reducing state government’s office space footprint.
- Consolidating common technology systems and services.
- Recovering additional Medicaid drug rebates and capturing various other costs for inmates from the federal government.
- Aligning regionally operated Community Based Corrections Programs.
- Selling state-owned farmland to generate revenue.
Combatting the Fentanyl Crisis
- Increasing penalties for manufacturing, delivering or possessing fentanyl with the intent to deliver.
- Enhancing sentences for fentanyl crimes that cause death or serious injury or involve minors.
- Expanding the distribution of medications like naloxone that can reverse opioid overdose.
Protecting State Investments
- Investment firms that manage the state’s money must not boycott fossil fuel energy or firearm companies, or generally invest funds to further environmental, social, governance, political, or ideological interests over maximized returns.
- The state must scrutinize companies in which it invests public funds and divest from those that engage in ESG practices.