CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – A nurse has been given four years in prison for fraudulently obtaining painkillers from her patients in eastern Iowa. Katie Boll, from Manchester, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids. She’d pleaded guilty to tampering with a consumer product resulting in injury and acquiring the painkiller oxycodone by deception. Federal prosecutors dropped 12 other counts in exchange. She also was ordered to forfeit her nursing license. Authorities said Boll was a nurse for the Good Neighbor Society in Manchester when she schemed to acquire hydrocodone, morphine and other painkillers from at least 14 patients in her care.

(Radio Iowa) — The Internal Revenue Service is now accepting our 2019 federal income tax returns and the Iowa Department of Revenue is taking our state returns, as of Monday. John Fuller, public information officer for the state tax agency, says they aren’t usually swamped with returns at this stage, unless someone is expecting a big refund. “We probably don’t get a lot early in the process,” Fuller says. “It’s probably beneficial for people to file sooner rather than later. With me, I’m always searching for one document or making sure I haven’t misplaced my W-2, but there’s a lot of early filers in Iowa, too.”

Iowans were very vocal in their complaints in recent years as refund checks were taking longer than usual to process due to increased security measures. “Our goal this year is to process returns in 30 days,” Fuller says, “and if we hit the 45-day mark, we’ll kick in some overtime on that.” The state revenue department has redesigned its website to better serve taxpayers. It’s at tax-dot-iowa-dot-gov (tax.iowa.gov).

Fuller says the site is a good starting point to find tax guidance, new tax forms, and answers to all kinds of tax questions. There’s information on how to file, tips to avoid common mistakes, and details on how to check the status of a refund. In addition, there’s a toll-free hotline: 800-367-3388. “We’ve enhanced our technology on our phone system which has been a frustrating experience when people have to wait too long,” Fuller says. “There’s a little more automation. We’ve also extended the time period when they can call. There’ll be people here answering the phones until 6 o’clock Monday through Thursday.”

Friday hours are from 8 A-M to 4:30 P-M. Fuller says they’ve also extended the front desk hours to help walk-in customers. Iowa taxpayers are required to provide their federal return with their Iowa return and Iowa returns are due April 30th.

(Radio Iowa) — A Republican senator from western Iowa is crafting a plan to have the state hire a company that would monitor financial data and flag Iowans who may not be eligible for government food assistance or Medicaid health coverage. Senator Jason Schultz, a Republican from Schleswig, says  “To apply technology to what’s currently a manual system, to remove from the process those whose situations haven’t changed and only check those where something popped up.”

Schultz says his plan is a work in process, but his initial draft has cleared its first hurdle in the senate. Meanwhile key Republicans in the Iowa House are temporarily tabling a plan to require Iowans who get government food assistance or insurance through Medicaid to prove they’re eligible for it every four months. Officials in the state agency that oversees welfare programs say they’d have to hire 280 more full-time workers and spend millions if THAT bill becomes law.

Mark Randol is Iowa Medicaid director: “As far as all the changes required from this bill, it would be significant system configuration changes,” Randol said, “and that equals cost.” Matt Blake, a lobbyist for LeadingAge Iowa, says requiring nursing home residents to prove they’re eligible for Medicaid every quarter would be excessive and disruptive. “We in the provider side with this type of population tend to assist with eligibility of income,” he says.

“At the same time, with guardians and those type of individuals, we would have to work to track them down, make sure we have people constantly trying to keep that verification solid.” Victoria Sinclair, a lobbyist for Iowans for Tax Relief, says other states are requiring more frequent income reporting to determine whether people are eligible for government benefits. “We do need to protect taxpayer dollars and make sure they’re being spent effectively, appropriately and reasonably and making sure the people who are on the system do qualify,” Sinclair says.

MaryNell Trefz of the Iowa Child and Family Policy Center is among the advocates urging legislators to table the bill: “Our state already has a very robust eligibility verification system,” she says. Trefz says state officials do monthly cross-checks to ensure Iowa welfare recipients are not getting benefits from another state.

Republican legislators have scheduled a meeting in February with staff from two state agencies to assess how high Iowa’s welfare fraud rate may be. After that meeting, GOP lawmakers in the House say it’s likely they’ll reconsider ways to crack down on welfare fraud.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:40 a.m. CST

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has named an eastern Iowa attorney who lives on a hobby farm to the Iowa Supreme Court, marking the first time the court has two women serving on the seven-member court. Dana Oxley, the only woman finalist on the list forwarded to the governor on Jan. 9, works at a Cedar Rapids law firm. Oxley, who is 52, is the second woman on the court joining Susan Christensen who was appointed by Reynolds in 2018. She is Reynolds’ third appointment to the court and fills a vacancy left by the unexpected death on Nov. 15 of Chief Justice Mark Cady.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The trial for the man charged with killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts in 2018 has been delayed. Cristhian Bahena Rivera had been scheduled to stand trial for first-degree murder on Feb. 4 in Sioux City. That plan became uncertain last week when Judge Joel Yates suspended the case so that the Iowa Supreme Court could decide whether to grant Rivera’s pretrial appeal of a key ruling. A court spokesman said Tuesday that the trial has been delayed and will not happen in the month of February. A new trial date will be set after the Iowa Supreme Court decides how to handle Rivera’s appeal.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has made a last-minute trip to Iowa following arguments in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in Washington. The Democratic presidential candidate turned up Tuesday at a bar in Council Bluffs, where she was met by a standing-room-only crowd of more than 100. She is among a handful of White House hopefuls making a final push in the Midwestern state before Monday’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. Her eleventh-hour push comes as she is facing new questions about her time as a top Minnesota prosecutor in the mid-2000s.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — A warming center being evicted for not meeting fire codes has found a new spot to serve the homeless in Waterloo. The Waterloo Warming Center announced Tuesday it will be moving to the former Hawkeye Community College Metro Center and open for service on Friday. The overnight shelter opened Jan. 6 at Jubilee United Methodist Church Freedom Center to provide a safe haven from freezing temperatures. But organizers later were told it would have to close because inspectors found the space didn’t have a sprinkler system — a requirement for any building serving residential needs.