Only one legislator attends Washington forum

State Sen. Kevin Kinney was the only legislator present at Washington’s legislative briefing Saturday morning, with state Reps. Jarad Klein and Joe Mitchell and state Sen. Jeff Reichman absent.

Some at the meeting said they were disappointed that the Republican legislators did not turn out.

“Personally I think it’s — I don’t want to say it’s a travesty because I don’t know what they’ve got going on — but for you to be the only one here,” Washington Superintendent Willie Stone said. “We didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone before legislation went through on funding for school aid for [State Supplemental Aid], so the questions I had for them will go unheard because they’re not here.”

Kinney spoke with around 20 community members about their concerns, covering a wide range of topics. Education was among the most frequently brought up, coming days after the Legislature set State Supplemental Aid to schools at 2.5% allowable growth.

“We’ll have to look at cutting teachers and cutting staff, because basically 80% of our funding goes to staff,” Stone said. “It makes it really challenging to understand how we say education is really important to us … but we fund it the least.”

Kinney said he agreed.

“The growth of funding for private schools and home-school services have increased 150% in the last six years, we keep shifting more money to private and charter schools,” he said. “It’s a choice whether you go to a private school … I’m just not one for vouchers.”

Community Member and Republican candidate for state representative Heather Hora said she didn’t think funding would fix education issues in the state.

“What’s happening in classrooms right now is completely inappropriate, and I’m not sure that money would ever solve that problem,” she said. “I know that in the classrooms right now … if a child tells you to ‘F off,’ they’re just expressing themselves and you have to deal with it. There’s no other occupation where we would ever stand for that … I don’t think teacher burnout is coming from not getting paid, I think teacher burnout is coming from behavior.”

Kinney disagreed.

“I had a job where people told me to ‘F off’ all the time for 30 years working in law enforcement,” he said. “It’s just one of those things where you don’t react, you do your job.”

Also on the subject of education, participants discussed bills that would regulate social studies courses.

“I’m concerned about what’s happening in terms of teaching history, the real history of the United States, including slavery, and not diminishing that,” said former history teacher Randy Henderson.

“I do think that all history needs to be taught, that’s how our country has gotten to be the country that it is,” Kinney said. “You can’t hide things.”

Another topic of conversation was a proposed flat tax bill currently in the legislature. Kinney and a speaker from the public agreed that they opposed the bill.

"A flat tax may be OK, but this is not a true flat tax because we’re not getting rid of the tax credits that go with it,“ Kinney said. ”Individuals that are making a lot of money are going to be able to have the deductions … I don’t particularly care for the way it’s set up.“

A few participants brought up hunting laws currently in the legislative process.

“There’s a bill for additional non-resident deer hunting tags, I’m against that, I think it takes away from our resident hunters,” county resident Lee Wilson said. “There’s a bill that makes crossbows, instead of a firearm, into the archery category, I disagree with that, they’re effective out to about 100 yards.”

County resident Steve Swaffer said the current deer tag system had gaps that needed to be addressed.

“Under the current rules, an out-of-state hunter can go and shoot a buck, the Iowa hunter tags it, and the out-of-state hunter takes it home,” he said. “It’s perfectly legal for them to do that. So if you want to increase the number of antler tags from out-of-state hunters, it ought to be tied to a rule that says you can’t party hunt with an Iowa resident.”

Kinney said that circumvention tactic was news to him.

“I never thought about the loophole, and that would be a way to get around it,” he said.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com