Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg visits Washington Y

WASHINGTON — Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg made a stop at the Washington YMCA and Wellness Park Friday morning as part of the governor’s office 99-county tour.

Gregg said at the end of the visit that he was impressed with the amenities he saw.

“All of the investment that’s going into the YMCA (is) very well done,” he said. “I think it reflects a lot of community pride and involvement, and what it is, is investment in quality of life.”

The lieutenant governor addressed an assortment of statewide issues before his walk-through of the facility, saying his duties as the second highest-ranking state official were quite diverse.

“The Iowa State Constitution says the role of the lieutenant governor is to serve as governor in the event the governor can’t serve,” he said. “But then the rest of it goes on to say, ‘And shall have other duties as assigned by the governor.’ And that’s pretty wide-ranging.”

Child care

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Both Gregg and Washington Y CEO Amy Schulte highlighted child care shortages as a pressing concern of the day. Gregg said the matter often put communities in a double bind.

“Centers, they can’t charge enough to make enough money on it, but parents will tell you … that you pay way more for child care than you do for your mortgage,” he said. “So how can it be too expensive on one hand and still not generate enough revenue on the other? It makes it a really tough challenge to solve.”

The Lt. Gov. highlighted pilot programs and community initiatives aiming to address the shortage, saying there were, “thousands and thousands of new child care slots that are available, or coming online” across the state.

One example was a major employer offering child care as an employee benefit. Another was a day care center that doubled as a children’s museum on weekends to bring in additional revenue and keep its costs down.

Ambulance response times

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Highlighting another matter with a major impact on rural communities, Gregg said the state was looking to improve its ambulance response times. He said some low-population counties had an average of 25-30 minutes between a 911 call and the first emergency responders’ arrival.

He noted that state officials were coordinating with Calhoun, Cass and Van Buren counties on a pilot program which he described as “Uber for EMS” to shore up response times.

“Just like when you call an Uber, it identifies the five closest people who are willing to give you a ride somewhere, (the program) identifies the five closest emergency responders who are willing to drop everything and go to the site of the emergency,” he said. “We could strategically have people who are trained up, willing to be notified if they happen to be one of the five closest people to the emergency, have them equipped with materials, and respond quickly just to stabilize the person until an ambulance can come.”

The setup is based on a similar model used by a nonprofit in Israel, which has lowered the country’s national emergency response time to an average of three minutes, according to Gregg.

State consolidation efforts

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Gregg was asked about dissonance between state consolidation efforts and local government control during a brief car ride between the Y and the Wellness Park.

While the state’s tentative plan to eliminate or consolidate 111 of the its 256 boards and commissions has drawn criticism for reducing opportunities for county and city-level representation, he said the status quo of bureaucracy bloat was net worse.

“We’re in a position where it’s actually hard to find people to fill some of those positions,” he said. “There’s partisan balance requirements, there’s gender requirements, there’s level of experience requirements, and sometimes there’s geographic location requirements. It can make it very difficult to find people … there will still be plenty of opportunities for folks to engage with their government formally, as members of those commissions. But there will also still be public entities, there will still be opportunities to provide feedback.”

Another aspect of Iowa’s push to consolidate government affairs is recent legislation that merges state departments and slashes the number of executive-level cabinet agencies from 37 down to 16.

While he acknowledged that the move was sometimes confusing for local government agencies that work with the state, Gregg said the governor’s office was prioritizing the needs of constituents themselves — who are less impacted by the change than local policymakers — and added that he expected fewer causes for confusion as people got used to the new system.

“Most people when they interact with different agencies of state government don’t really think about it as interacting with one agency versus another agency, they view it as state government,” he said. “So we should view it as one team. And I think what the government realignment does is it allows us to better execute that vision of being one team … yes, it’s a new Department of Health and Human Services. But the customer, the consumer, the people of Iowa, our constituents, view it as interacting with state government, and it shouldn’t really matter which agency it is.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com