(Radio Iowa) – House Speaker Pat Grassley says Republicans in the House plan to increase the rate Iowa nursing homes are paid to care for residents enrolled in Medicaid.

The Medicaid program pays for the care of over half of Iowa nursing home residents. Grassley says the current reimbursement rate was set before COVID hit, based on nursing home costs in 2018. Since then, nursing homes have been dealing with inflation and paying higher wages to try to keep and attract workers. Seventeen nursing homes closed last year due to financial strain and advocates warn more closures will happen if the Medicaid reimbursement rate doesn’t rise.

“We recognize that there is that need,” Grassley told reporters during a news conference on the House floor.

According to the Iowa Health Care Association, the daily rate Iowa Medicaid pays is covering just 80% of the costs of providing nursing home care.

“I don’t know if we can fix it in one year as it was created over a couple year period, this gap that now exists again, but that’s why we went higher with our budget target.” Grassley said.

House Republicans have a handful of state spending priorities like this one that put their overall state spending plan about $50 million above the target amount Governor Reynolds recommended in January. Republicans in the Senate have signaled they’re building a budget with a bottom line number of about $8.5 billion — identical to the governor’s budget plan.

Governor Reynolds is recommending the state spend $15 million on the Medicaid reimbursement rate for nursing homes. Grassley says Republicans in the House have not yet decided on an amount.

(Radio Iowa) – Numbers out today show Iowa’s unemployment rate dropped below three percent in February. Iowa Workforce Development director, Beth Townsend, says that’s one of the positives for the state. “The unemployment rate went down to two-point-nine percent (2.9%), which is a tenth of a point decrease from last month, which is always good news. And our labor force participation rate, we maintained the strong gains we had made in December in January. So we’re still at, we’re at 68point-one percent which is a good sign,” Townsend says.

She says the participation rate is important as they have been working to get more people back into the workforce. “In January I think we gained almost a half a point, that was a pretty good increase. We had been trending up, but it was pretty small increments, and then we saw a big jump in December,” she says. Townsend says manufacturing added 700 jobs in February. “They’re up about four-thousand-300 jobs over the course of the year. Iowa’s economy is really reliant upon advanced manufacturing. So that’s a good sign,” she says. “We do see that transportation and warehousing is down a little bit over the last year about two-thousand jobs, which probably is related to supply chain and inflation and more indicative of what’s going on federally, nationally.”

Townsend says leisure and hospitality jobs are up almost 45-hundred jobs over the course of the year, and the service industries had the biggest increase in jobs this past month “Gained 13-hundred jobs. So we’re seeing some good indications that our economy is is resilient and riding the storm out of what’s going on nationally from an economic standpoint,” Townsend says.

The construction industry did lose 16-hundred jobs in February — which Townsend says is probably related to bad weather. She says they expect to see the industry gain back jobs as the weather improves and more projects get underway outside.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – Griswold District 18 Republican Representative Thomas Moore, Thursday, issued a summary of bills that passed this week, and other matters discussed in the Iowa House.

Moore says 24-bills passed the House, with 21 passing with bipartisan support. Topping his list of bills that passed, was Teacher Empowerment (HF604), which passed Wednesday afternoon.

It includes teacher whistleblower protection, and lays out a 3 strike system for student discipline. First offense, meet with school counselor and one day of in-school suspension. Second offense, meet with school counselor and 5 days of in-school suspension. Third offense, remove student from that class and if in high school, not receive credit for that class.

In summary, Moore says, the bill includes authorizing the ombudsman to investigate complaints received by individuals who hold a license, certificate, authorization, or statement of recognition issued by the board of educational examiners, modifying the responsibilities of school districts, accredited nonpublic schools, and charter schools, and authorizing teachers employed by school districts, accredited nonpublic schools, or charter schools to remove disruptive students from the classroom.

Another bill that passed dealt with Eminent Domain. HF565 relates to the CO2 Pipeline utility construction project requirements, and including effective date and applicability provisions.

“It is my belief ,” Moore said, “that the pipelines will still go forward even with the increased regulations.. The bill requires a liquefied carbon dioxide pipeline company to get voluntary easements for 90% of the affected route miles before being granted the right to use eminent domain. It says the IUB (Iowa Utilities Board) shall not grant a liquefied carbon dioxide pipeline company the right of eminent domain unless 90% of the affected route miles have been achieved through voluntary easement. The company shall submit regular reports on its progress in acquiring voluntary easements as determined by the board.

Other bills that passed through the House the past few days include (But are not limited to):

·     HF253, which allows charter school students to participate in activities in their resident district if their charter school doesn’t offer an extracurricular activity. Charter school students will be counted as 1/10 of a pupil in the school district.

·     HF349 that makes changes to the probation code section. It allows a person on probation to earn credit for working, education, and staying in compliance with probation requirements.

·     HF595 increases penalties for fentanyl related crimes and for those who manufacture or possess controlled substances around a minor. It enhances the sentence for a person who causes the death of another through controlled substance use and doesn’t seek medical help. It also expands who can provide and possess opioid antagonists.

Representative Moore can be reached at tom.moore@legis.iowa.gov and (712) 789-9954.

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Glenwood Police Department reports 39-year-old Robert McAtee, of Glenwood, was arrested Wednesday. He was taken into custody for Aggravated Assault. McAtee’s  bond was set at $2,000 (cash or surety).

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa will -not- take part in the Center for Disease Control’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior survey, which asks kids about their drug use, sexual behavior, mental health and other behaviors. Instead, the state will focus on its own Iowa Youth Survey to monitor at-risk behavior. Child advocates are concerned. Anne Discher, executive director of Common Good Iowa, says the Iowa Youth Survey doesn’t ask questions about students’ gender identity, unlike the C-D-C’s survey.

“It’s really the only one that allows us to see the specific needs of trans kids,” Discher says. “So we’re doing away with the opportunity to really have fine grade data around health and mental health that includes trans kids.” Discher says it’s important to ask questions about gender identity, given the recent passage of several controversial pieces of legislation by state lawmakers that affect transgender children.

“What it looks like to me is, we are going to make life harder for trans kids,” Discher says, “and then conveniently, we’re not going to gather any data that would prove that it actually the things we do make their lives worse.” Not all states participate in the C-D-C’s survey. Colorado, Florida and Idaho say they are also opting out of it, starting this year.

(reporting by Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – Republicans in the Iowa Senate have approved most of the elements in the governor’s wide-ranging education bill. The legislation would require educators to tell parents if a child asks to be known by a different name or gender at school and it would prohibit teachers from leading discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms. Senator Ken Rozenboom, a Republican from Oskaloosa, says those topics are totally unnecessary for elementary students. “Parents and guardians that wish to have that conversation with their child can do so,” Rozenboom said, “…but to have that in the public school most of us, many of us believe is inappropriate.”

The Senate bill also calls for removing books from school libraries that describe or depict sex acts. Democrats in the Senate voted against the legislation. Senator Molly Donahue, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, is a teacher. “This country is supposed to be a country of freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of ideas,” Donahue says. “But those freedoms end when politicians begin censoring certain ideas because they find them uncomfortable.”

House Republicans have approved elements of the governor’s education package as separate bills. Republican legislative leaders now have to decide whether to approve the policies separately or together in one large bill.