Hello, Iowa House District 84 from the State Capitol!

The Iowa Legislature continues to pass bills that get this year’s session closer to adjourning “sine die”, which is Latin for adjourning without a day set for future action.

Senate File 2472 – the property tax reform bill, had a subcommittee and public hearing for additional opportunities for the public to provide input. Last Wednesday, the house amended the senate bill and intends to:

1. Cap revenue growth at 2% (excluding new construction to help with city and county growth and includes exceptions for schools and debt levy).
2. Converts the homestead credit to an exemption and triple the exemption to $15,000. Funds from the previous homestead credit would be used to buy down the $5.40 levy to provide taxpayer relief.
3. It eliminates the backfill of the business property tax exemption and transfer the roughly $125 million to the Taxpayer Relief Fund to deliver more tax relief.
4. It gradually increases the share of SAVE money collected from the sales tax devoted to property tax relief from the current 7% to 25% by 2031.
5. Shifts the burden of proof on the assessor when valuation increases by 10% or more, so the government must justify why your bill is going up.
6. Makes changes to the informational mailer sent to property taxpayers get to be easier to read and more transparent where the money is spent.
7. It creates a FirstHome Iowa program modeled after Iowa’s 529 accounts to help first-time home buyers.

These are just some of the changes that should ease some of the burden to property owners by an estimated $435 million next year and $4 billion over the next six years. The final version should be finalized this week or next.

Both the house and senate passed SF 473 and is now under consideration by Governor Kim Reynolds. This bill ensures that the Dept. of Health and Human Services cannot exclude parents from being foster parents or prospective adoptive parents based on their beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill doesn’t change placing children with foster or adoptive parents who align with the beliefs of the child or their family of origin. It just doesn’t turn away a foster family based on an ideological litmus test.

Speaking of children, the Iowa House unanimously passed HF 2758, which makes an annual appropriation of $3 million to the Pediatric Cancer Research Program at the University of Iowa. These funds will go directly toward laboratory research and clinical trials, not administrative overhead or unrelated costs, and will be specifically geared for a child’s biology, not as a “small adult”.

Have a safe and healthy week, and as the saying goes – “April showers bring May flowers”, which originated (according to March 9^th, 2024 article at www.1800flowers.com) in a poem by Thomas Tusser in the year 1157!