Amendment to protect hunting rights passes out of committee

Week 5 is completed. It was a full week of committee activity, and a bit of debate on the floor. We have reached the last day when bills can be requested by individual House members, Feb. 14.

On Tuesday, I was able to bring my resolution for a constitutional amendment to guarantee our right to hunt, fish and trap to the full Natural Resources committee and see it passed for a possible vote on the House Floor.

We amended the language in committee a bit, streamlining it so that it is more direct. Guaranteeing these rights will future-proof them against the animal rights groups such as PETA and HSUS that have worked for decades to take them away.

The committee vote was 13 for and eight against, strictly on party lines. Shamefully, not one single Democrat on the committee was willing to vote to add our right to hunt, fish and trap to the state’s constitution.

This week, the Senate passed a bill to increase SSA Funding for the next fiscal year by 2%. This is in alignment with what the Governor proposed in her budget.

Iowa House Republicans are interested in getting more funding to public schools and have a proposal of our own. We passed the bill as Senate File 167 Feb. 13 with a 58 to 35 vote.

Our House bill includes an increase of 2.25% in SSA funding. This increase, plus the second phase of the teacher salary increase passed last session, results in $114.5 million more for public schools.

It also includes a one-time increase of 0.6% SSA payment which equates to $22.6 million more for schools; a $10 increase in per pupil equity, which equates to a $5.8 million increase; an increase in the Operational Sharing Budget from 21 to 25, providing an additional $1 million to our smaller schools that use this program; and an increase in School Transportation to cap the cost of transportation for each school district at the statewide average of $430, resulting in $5.8 million in additional funds, again mostly for our rural schools with high transportation costs.

Altogether, these increases equate to a 3.93% increase in state funding to public schools.

The new state cost per pupil under this proposal would be $8,039 per pupil. That includes $27 per student for the .6% increase.

In FY 2025, we allocated $3.7876 billion to public education from the General Fund. This proposal would allocate $3.9368 billion. These increases are an answer to the many specific funding issues we hear from our school districts.

While each line item may not affect each individual school district equally, one line item may have a big impact on addressing the issue a specific district is facing.

We recognize that our 30-day deadline to settle an SSA number has passed. We are hopeful that this delay will be worth it as we work to secure additional dollars for our public schools.

As always, I look forward to seeing you at the Capitol, or in the district