May 8, 2008

Public forum

Session in review

Healthcare

Of local interest

Education

Quality of Life

Veterans

Public safety

Other good stuff

Hopes for next year

Recent photos

Public forum

Join me for an evening version of Eggs & issues in Fort Dodge on Tuesday, May 20, from 6-7:30 p.m.  The meeting will be held in its usual location at ICCC’s ACE Building.  This is a great opportunity to recap the 2008 session and how new legislation will benefit our area.

Session in review

The 82nd General Assembly was certainly the most productive in my six years in the Senate.

Healthcare

Most everyone agrees that the highlight of the 2008 session was making affordable health care coverage available to all Iowa children. Another public health issue was passage of the Smoke-free Air Act. Although controversial and I would have preferred no exemptions, it will safeguard the health of 95 percent of Iowa’s workers. We also passed the Healthy Kids Act to prevent childhood obesity. We approved a bill that will make sure insurance providers cover vaccinations for HVP, which can cause cervical cancer. We added $12.7 million to help counties provide mental health care and put $1 million into the Mental Health Risk Pool. We increased the Medicaid provider reimbursement by 1 percent.

Of local interest

Some of the greatest achievements for the people of my senate district are:

• The statewide penny that will go to school infrastructure.  This will help all 10 school districts in my senate district. It provides fairness and equity for all of Iowa’s students and taxpayers, whether they reside in a property tax-rich or property tax-poor school district. I have worked on passage of this legislation since my arrival in the Senate six years ago. Besides helping kids, it will provide property tax relief of $210 million over the next six years.
  
  
• TIME-21 funding that will provide at least $120 million for roads and bridges. I would have preferred a four-cent fuel tax so that out-of-state motorists could help pay for the highways they use. Hopefully we’ll be able to pass that in the 83rd General Assembly.  But this year we helped make fees more fair by licensing non-commercial and non-farm pick-ups based on weight and value—just like other vehicles.  That will go into effect with 2010 models. 
  
  

Education

Community college funding was increased by about $13 million, which more than restored the cuts the Governor had made in his budget proposal. This legislation includes an additional $9.1million in basic funding, $1.5 million for salaries, $1 million for work-study grants, and $500,000 in tuition assistance for students studying health care at Iowa’s community colleges.

Other education highlights include passing a Model Core Curriculum that will bring more rigor and relevance to our classrooms; a 4 percent increase in basic support for public schools; continued investment to bring teacher pay up to 25th in the nation; an additional $15 million for early childhood initiatives in local school districts; an additional $100,000 for after-school programs, such as the successful BLAST! Program at Butler Elementary School; AEAs got an additional $2.5 million; our state universities received an additional $5 million to keep tuition increases modest; and private colleges, like Buena Vista University, will benefit from an additional $1.85 million for the Iowa Tuition Grant program.

Quality of Life

After six years, I was able to help return money scooped by a previous Legislature from ATV and snowmobile funds. This $1.8 million was never public money; it was assessed by the ATV and snowmobile owners themselves to create more recreational opportunities. I was happy to help right this wrong.

I am a strong supporter of REAP and am pleased that we added another $2.5 million for Resource Enhancement & Protection, for a total of $18 million. I tried to obtain full funding ($20 million), but the tight budget year prevented that.

We also passed “green” building standards legislation, and the Senate approved a bill to constitutionally protect natural resources funding, but the House didn’t pass it.

Veterans

I chair the Veterans Affairs Committee and am pleased that this was a very successful session for Iowa’s veterans.  I’m told by veterans and others that we passed more comprehensive legislation for veterans than anytime since the end of World War II. We passed a bill to strengthen, fund and provide training for all 99 county veterans affairs directors.  I was delighted Governor Culver chose to sign this and two other veterans bills at the 133rd Air National Guard Squadron in Fort Dodge on May 2.  

The county veterans director legislation includes training for the veterans directors in each county so that they can better serve local veterans. The bill also expands eligibility for Gold Star license plates to families of those who “died as a result of injuries sustained in combat.” I sponsored and floor-managed this bill at the request of Terry Boettcher and was on hand for the bill-signing. His father was injured when his B24 Liberator crashed but did not die until after the war.

We provided job protection for returning Iraq and Afghanistan troops; expanded services from the Veterans Trust Fund; protected parental rights of deployed service men and women; expanded the popular veterans home-buyer matching grant ($5;000); created a new veterans lottery game that will put $3.3 million annually in the Veterans Trust Fund; expanded hunting and fishing programs for disabled veterans; expanded the veterans orphan education program; appropriated $35 million in state matching funds for the $100 million residential facility at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown.

We also expanded the Vietnam Veterans Bonus program. We added an additional $3.8 million to the popular Iowa National Guard tuition aid program.  We are also continuing a fund for families of severely injured veterans—grants up to $10,000 each—to pay for travel and accommodations to attend to their loved one in the hospital or to make their homes handicap accessible.

Public safety

I’m the only senator with three correctional facilities in his district. I was pleased to get full funding for the newly opened Community-based Correctional Facility in Fort Dodge.  These dollars will permit proper staffing from day one.  I was proud to participate in the grand opening of that facility recently. 

We got additional funding for correctional officers, for state troopers’ overtime pay and for increased gasoline costs. I believe it is vital to protect the professional people who protect us.

Other good stuff

This year’s “good government” legislation includes a statewide uniform voter paper trail to ensure the integrity of every ballot. We brought about absentee ballot reform. We changed school board terms to four years and placed a limit on special elections to improve voter turnout and reduce the cost of low-voter-turnout elections.

We outlawed Stranger-Originated Life Insurance to protect senior citizens from unscrupulous life insurance sales people. An issue that I cared deeply about was resolved favorably: we added funds to our public libraries, which had been cut by the Governor, and restored funding to last year’s level.

A personal victory for me was obtaining a matching $150,000 grant for the U. S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy to be built in Iowa. I am a non-paid, volunteer member of the board of directors and am delighted this facility may be built in Iowa.

We did all this while balancing the books and even improved the fiscal condition of the state. We added to the state’s rainy day fund, bringing it to the highest level in history (about $620 million). We also paid back much of the money borrowed by a previous Legislature from the Senior Living Trust.

Hopes for next year

The biggest disappointment for me was that the House didn’t pass the open meetings/open records legislation, which had been approved in the Senate. I had worked on the legislation last summer and fall as a member of an interim study committee.  I firmly believe in open government and that the public has the right to know. 

Although we were able to do a lot for community colleges, I am disappointed we weren’t able to get an additional $100,000 to complete the fire training center at Iowa Central Community College.

I was also unsuccessful in adding eating disorders to the list of mental illnesses covered by the mental health parity act. I’ll keep trying.

In the next session, new issues will appear and old issues will reappear. My constituents are my bosses, and I encourage you to contact me via e-mail (daryl.beall@legis.state.ia.us), phone (515-573-7889) or mail (1928 North 22nd Street, Fort Dodge, IA 50501).

Recent photos

Download photos at www.iowasenatedemocrats.org/beall/photos.