Meeting at IBA

The IAAE Advisory Board will have a meeting on Saturday, May 11 at 9 am in the Sioux City room at the IBA Convention.  This will be mostly a meeting to welcome any new members and to talk over what we have accomplished to date.  In addition, we will discuss the upcoming meeting for the Executive Board and the Advisory Board on June 15.

Kennedy Center Advocacy in the Arts Conference

Three members of the IAAE Board attended the Kennedy Center Advocacy in the Arts Conference in Washington, D.C. this spring. They will be sharing their new-found knowledge with members across the state.

David Law, Martha Kroese and Leon Kuehner

In the Iowa Legislature

This  was the week that the log jams started to be addressed. This was particularly true in the conference committee on education reform.  Wednesday the House made an offer to go to 2% allowable growth plus another 2% increases the first year and 4% allowable growth the second year and use the House passed version of reform. This gives the Senate democrats the funding level it wants and the House GOP the reforms they want. It seems a fair compromise and both sides will have to swallow hard and should accept it. Should the Senate not accept and insist on changes then the funding level no doubt go down or back to 0 for the next two years  We can expect some responses early next week.

You may see the differences in the senate and house versions at
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/DOCS/LSAREPORTS/EducationReformConferenceCommittee.pdf

News from the Iowa Legislature on the Education Bill

From our Lobbyist Cal Hultman:

This week there was a lot of activity on the education reform bill.  The leadership of both chambers and the Gov. office  decided to move ahead with HF 215.  The Senate went to subcommittee on the bill Tuesday morning  and moved it to full committee later that day and there they amended the Senate passed version onto the House bill with a strike all amendment. This went to the full Senate for debate on Wednesday  where the amendment was adopted on party line vote  and the bill was then passed on a party line vote and sent back to the House. They will not concur and send it back to the Senate where they will not recede and then it will go to conference committee. 

The conference committee is made up of 5 from each house with 3 majority and 2 minority each. These are closed conference committees which means all they can discuss are the difference between the two bills and not introduce any new issues that have not been passed by either house in this bill. By rule they have to meet within 24 hours of appointment and begin to work. 

There is no time limit for completion  and I assume they will work hard at it next week and come to resolution in the next two to three weeks.Once the differences are discerned I will try to get them out to you if they are available.

Fine Arts/Iowa Core Professional Development

The statewide Fine Arts/Iowa Core professional development sponsored by the Iowa Department of Education is being announced this week.  

Participants will register through the participating AEA for the date they wish to participate.  The day is designed to be presented at no cost to the participant. The day includes a fine arts/Iowa Core overview, history, and supportive research in the a.m. and participatory breakouts by discipline in the p.m.  The afternoon includes lessons, assessments and experience with the fine arts and universal constructs of Iowa Core.

Presenters include Rosanne Malek, Iowa Department of Education, Leon Kuehner, Fine Arts/Iowa Core Professional Development and Materials Developer and member of the IAAE exec board, and writing team members representing the disciplines of general music, vocal/instrumental music, visual art, and drama/theatre.

Wednesday, May 29 – Great Prairie AEA– Ottumwa

Thursday, May 30 – Green Hills AEA – Red Oak

Thursday, June 6  - AEA 267 – Cedar Falls

Friday, June 7 – Great Prairie AEA - Burlington

Monday, June 17 – Keystone AEA - Elkader

Tuesday, June 18 – Prairie Lakes AEA– Fort Dodge – Iowa Central Community College

Friday, June 21 – Mississippi Bend AEA 9 - Bettendorf

Monday, June 24 – Prairie Lakes AEA – Emmetsburg – Iowa Lakes Community College

Thursday, June 27 – Northwest AEA – Sioux City

At the Capitol This Week

There was a lot of floor activity in both chambers this week. The Senate had all of it's members present this week and they were able to pass a number of bills over to the House. One of those passed was their priority on income tax credit. The education committee held hearings on the three Governor appointments to the Board of Regents. These have been controversial and their confirmation by the full Senate is questionable. All appointments, by law must be confirmed or rejected by April 15.
The House also passed a number of bills including three of the seven major appropriation bills. These have not been agreed to by the Senate, so there will be negotiating between the leaders for resolution, or they could end up in a conference committee. The education appropriations bill did include the House version of allowable growth for K-12 in it.
The Senate is still working on it's version of the education reform bill and the House Ways & Means committee passed out their version of the commercial/industrial property tax reform bill. This was a compilation of their original bill and the Governor's bill. It appears that a lot of these issues are moving and that the stage is starting to get set for the compromises and resolution to the differences being made. I think this will begin in earnest right after Easter.

Cal Hultman

Update from Lobbyist Cal

This is the last full week before the first funnel week which means there have been a lot of subcommittees meeting and very little floor work in either chamber.  The education legislation on allowable growth and K-12 reform has not seen any action.  The House still wants to have 2% allowable growth funded from the general and have this in the reform bill they sent to the Senate.  The Senate is still saying with their 4% allowable growth from property tax Senate passed plan. A real stalemate at this point.  

It has been rumored that the chair of the Senate Education committee is drafting his own K-12 reform bill and
will pass and send this to the House.  This means that we will have two bills that cannot be reconciled with each other.  This is complicated by fact that one of the democrat senators had major surgery and will be out at least two weeks. I takes 26 to pass a bill and the democrats only have 26 so this will have a slowing effect on the process.  Please forward any questions you may have to IAAE President David Law.