FAIRFIELD – Proposed changes to the state’s area education agencies took center stage during the Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Briefing Saturday, Feb. 17 at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center.

In January, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed overhauling the agencies, which provide special education support, media services and other services to school districts. Since then, the Iowa Senate and Iowa House have drafted their own legislation that amend Reynolds’ initial proposal in various ways.

A few dozen members of the audience inside the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center wore red shirts that referenced public education, and of the six questions that audience members got to ask, three of them were about the AEA legislation.

Fairfield Community School District Superintendent Stephanie Mishler thanked the three legislators on stage – Iowa Sen. Adrian Dickey and Iowa Reps. Helena Hayes and Jeff Shipley – for “slowing down” the AEA legislation to get more feedback from school administrators and the public. She said she was worried about the proposed change to a “fee for service” model, because Fairfield and districts like it would not be able to fund fulltime employees for special education support services like bigger school districts can.

Teran Buettell, a school psychologist with Great Prairie AEA, said one part of the proposal she disliked was moving AEAs into the Department of Education, where they would be overseen by the Department of Education Director. Buettell described that part of the proposal as “terrifying” because the director of that department is a political appointee, and not necessarily someone with a background in public education, she said. She added that is also worried that, under the Department of Education, the response times would be slower to potential crises.

Dickey told the audience that the Legislature was taking up the issue of AEAs in part to address “administrative bloat” that had caused the agency to grow to half a billion dollars.

“If I’m not willing to look at an agency of that size, you’d better vote my butt out right now,” Dickey said.

Dickey said evidence of the agencies’ bloat could be found in the high salaries for its administrators. He Listed a few of them, such as $307,000 for the regional coordinator, $246,000 for human resources director, and $197,000 for a school business official.

“Seventy-two people make over $100,000,” Adrian said of the AEAs. “Do we need that at nine different agencies?”

Flannery Beals, a math consultant with Great Prairie AEA, was another audience member who asked the legislators about AEAs. Beals said even before she joined the AEA, she used its services as a math teacher.

“I utilized the AEA every day,” she said. “I used their resources, their consultants, their media devices, all the things people might not know about.”

Beals said she’s worried about the legislation before the Iowa Senate which, if it passes as is, would allow 40 percent of funding for media and educational services to go to the local AEA, and 60 percent would go to the schools. She said she is worried about such a system, known as the “fee for service” proposal, creating inequities between large and small districts.

“In the current system, the money funnels from the schools to the AEA so we have the economy of scale, able to provide services to all school districts,” Beals said.

In addition to questions about AEAs, the legislators also fielded a couple of questions about water quality. Fairfield residents Diane Rosenberg and Patrick Bosold asked the legislators to support a moratorium on the construction of confined animal feeding operations to improve the state’s water quality. Rosenberg said she didn’t like the agricultural-related bills in the Legislature, and felt that the state is not taking water quality seriously.

Dickey disputed the idea that the state is not serious about water quality, saying that it spend between $70-$80 million on water quality initiatives last year.

“It’s not fair to say we don’t care about water quality,” he said.

Hayes said she understands the concern over water quality, but felt it has been improving in recent decades. She said that farmers care about their land and water because they want to pass it down to the kids and grandkids.

On the issue of a CAFO moratorium, Shipley asked Bosold if any legislator from the area had endorsed the idea. He said that any advances on issues like water quality would only come about if they were treated in a nonpartisan way. He also commented that he is more worried about the health effects of synthetic meat.

The next legislative briefing will be on Saturday, April 20 at 7:30 a.m. at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center.