January 27, 2012

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AFSCME president blasts Governor’s budget plan

January 28, 2011 By

The president of the state’s largest employees union is critical of the budget plan Governor Terry Branstad released Thursday that calls for $360-million in state budget cuts. AFSCME Council 61 president, Danny Homan, is especially critical of cuts to education.

Homan says area education agencies, the regents institutions, community colleges and other education funding take “severe hits” in the governor’s proposal. “If we’re going to attract the kind of good-paying jobs that Governor Branstad has talked about creating, we must keep the high standard of education and opportunity that Iowans have traditionally had,” Homan said.

The governor has said that union workers will get a 15% raise when step increases for experience are figured into the deal agreed to by the previous governor. Homan says those facts are wrong. Homan says more than 50% of the union workers will not receive anything but the negotiated increases, and the total cost of the union negotiated wage costs in the next fiscal year are roughly 15-million dollars, and the step costs are roughly $19-million.

Homan says the remaining amount of the $89-million labor costs are the governor’s responsibility. Homan says he doesn’t know who the governor believes is getting the other $55-million but he believes it is the administration staff and unrepresented state workers. “I really don’t know what the governor wants to do, or won’t do, because the governor has not talked to this union,” Homan said, “so I can’t comment past that.”

An advisor to the governor recommended last week that the negotiating process, known as “Chapter 20″ be changed. Homan commented for the first time on that idea. Homan says Chapter 20 was passed in 1974 by then Governor Ray and a bipartisan House and Senate and he says it has worked well. He says the proposals for change from the governor’s office are “radical changes” and not moderate changes and are changes the union will not support.

Homan said again he will not talk publicly about whether the union would be open to renegotiating the contract approved before Branstad took office.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,

Commission nominates nine for three spots on Supreme Court

January 27, 2011 By

Governor Branstad now has the names of the nominees for the three openings on the Iowa Supreme Court.

On Monday the 15 member State Judicial Nominating Commission began interviewing the 60 people who applied to be justices on the Iowa Supreme Court.  The last interview concluded midday today and just after 6:30 tonight the commission announced it had a slate of nine candidates to submit to Governor Branstad.

The youngest of the nine nominees for the state’s highest court is a 37-year-old University of Iowa law professor.  Four district court judges and a judge who sits on the Iowa Court of Appeals were nominated.  The three other nominees are Iowa attorneys working in private practice.  

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Politics & Government

One casino manager says increase in tax would be “devastating”

January 27, 2011 By

The general manager of at least one of Iowa’s state-licensed casinos is voicing concern about a piece of Governor Branstad’s budget plans. Branstad is asking legislators to approve a double-digit increase in the state tax on casino profits, raising the tax rate to 36%.

Prairie Meadows in Altoona and the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs currently pay a 24% tax, while the 15 other operations pay 22%. Bob Thursby is general manager of Terrible’s Casino in Osceola. “It’s a real hit to us,” Thursby said of the possible tax hike. “I think anyone in business would realize almost doubling the tax on our gross income would have a devastating effect on us.”

Branstad’s plan would allow the state to collect an estimated $200-million more in taxes. Thursby says the tax hike probably wouldn’t put his casino out of business, but it would definitely alter expansion plans. “We’re meeting with architects, engineers and builders right now to do an expansion to our hotel. We’re going to put another 90 rooms on,” Thursby said.

“That would certainly go on hold. We’re not going to spend those millions of dollars…at least until we can get our arms around what our business model looks like after this massive increase in taxes.” The general manager of the Horseshoe Casino declined to comment on Branstad’s proposals.

Calls from Radio Iowa to the heads of several other casinos have not been returned.

Filed Under: Politics & Government, Recreation & Entertainment Tagged With: , , ,

President of Regents, U-I call for report on football players’ illness

January 27, 2011 By

The presidents of the Board of Regents and the University of Iowa say they have asked for a report on the cause of the illness that required 13 Hawkeye football players to be hospitalized. The athletic department held a news conference Wednesday where a doctor identified the disease as Rhabdomyolysis , which is a muscle injury syndrome and he says can be caused by extreme workouts.

 The director of football operations could not give exact details of the workouts, but said they were similar to what the team has been doing for years. U-I president Sally Mason and Regents President David Miles says they have agreed to a 90-day timeline for the report.

See the  Regents/university release below:

The health and well-being of students at all of Iowa’s Public Universities is of paramount concern to the Iowa Board of Regents and to the University of Iowa. As such, the recent hospitalization of 13 University of Iowa football players following pre-season workouts is a cause for grave concern. Our immediate focus is the full recovery of each of the young men involved, and we continue to closely monitor the medical condition of our student-athletes. In that regard, we commend the UI Athletics Department for its quick response to the student-athletes’ health needs, and wish to express our confidence in the care that they are receiving at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

“Going forward, it is essential that we take the necessary steps to understand the factors that led to this to ensure that it never happens again,” said David Miles, president of the Iowa Board of Regents. “This morning President Sally Mason and I agreed to a 90-day timeline for completion of a root cause analysis of the events that led to the need to hospitalize these young men. At President Mason’s direction, this analysis was already underway shortly after the incident, and I appreciate the University’s efforts to involve independent medical experts in the process from the earliest moments.”

“The primary aim of this analysis will be to identify, to the extent possible, the root causes of this incident in order to create and implement effective preventative measures to ensure this does not happen in the future,” added Sally Mason, president of the University of Iowa. “It is an essential responsibility of the University to determine what is likely to have caused this rare condition among so many young men at one time, and to share those findings.”

Results of the analysis will be presented to the Board of Regents upon completion.

 David W. Miles                                                                      Sally Mason
President                                                                                 President
Board of Regents, State of Iowa                                     University of Iowa

Filed Under: Education, Health & Medicine Tagged With: ,

Scientists say more major flooding a matter of time

January 27, 2011 By

Iowa is seeing heavier rainstorms every year and scientists say it’s only a matter of time before the state is hit by yet another major flood. Richard Cruse, an agronomist at Iowa State University, says many communities are still recovering from previous flood disasters, like the ones that hit Cedar Rapids in 2008 and central Iowa in 2010.

“What we’re seeing in Iowa is this increased frequency of these very intense rainstorms,” Cruse says. “In the period of 1970 to 2005, the frequency of these very heavy events has increased 30%. When you couple the intensive row crop production with these very heavy rainstorms, it is a really ugly picture.”

Cruse says the homogenization of Iowa’s landscape is a major contributor to the state’s flood risk. He points to the dominance of corn and soybeans, which has vastly reduced Iowa’s absorbent prairie grass, wetlands, and forests. Cruse says restoring even some of that diversity would significantly reduce flood risk.

“We know that you could take 10% of the land that’s currently in row crop, and reduce soil erosion losses by way more than 50%,” Cruse says. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to farm areas that are flooding every other, every third, even every fourth year. Those areas could be put into perennials and probably not lose any total economic return.”

Some Iowa landowners are restoring wetlands and working to prevent flooding on their properties. Laura Krouse, ripped out four acres of corn on her Mount Vernon farm and built a wetland area. It sits on only four-percent of her farmland, but absorbs nearly all the water that used to run right off it.

“We forced basically all the surface water and all the water that comes out of the tiles goes down here and goes to the surface,” Krouse says. “So, even if we get a really big rain event, some of it is going to get stored before it starts to release to the stream below.” Still, the demand for corn and soybeans is intensifying. Prices continue to rise for both.

Traders say Iowa will need to grow 500,000 more acres of corn than it did last year if the nation’s going to prevent price spikes, maybe even rationing. As drought in other parts of the world drives up demand for Iowa’s crops, the state faces a conundrum: the more homogenized the land becomes to meet that need, the greater our own risk of flooding here at home.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Weather Tagged With:

House GOP pushes voter ID

January 27, 2011 By

Republicans in the Iowa House have endorsed the idea of having Iowa voters show a photo I.D. before they may cast a ballot on Election Day.

Representative Jeremy Taylor, a Republican from Sioux City, said it’s about ensuring the integrity of the voting process.

“All it takes to support this bill is the acknowledgement that the possibility of fraud or impersonation exists,” Taylor said.

Democrats like Representative Bruce Hunter of Des Moines suggested the policy would make voting more difficult for minorities, the elderly and disabled Iowans who don’t have an I.D.

“We are talking about ways to keep honest people from voting,” Hunter said. “And that’s a shame because that’s all this bill is — a Jim Crow-style voter suppression bill.”

Representative Deborah Berry, a Democrat from Waterloo — an African American, said 11 percent of Iowans don’t have a photo I.D. — many because they’re too old or too poor to have a car.

“Sometimes we look at things through our middle class, upper middle class and wealthy eyes, but we don’t really think about those people who are the least of these,” Berry said.

Representative Gary Worthan, a Republican from Storm Lake, said with the right to vote comes responsibility.

“If you’re not willing to accept that responsibility, put in a little effort on your own part to go out and get a photo I.D., study the issues, register — that doesn’t say a whole lot about your interest in your government and what’s going on around you,” Worthan said.

Republican Matt Schultz, Iowa’s new secretary of state, campaigned on the idea, saying if Iowans have to show a photo I.D. to board a plane or buy booze, they should show an I.D. to vote. 

The bill passed the House on a 60-to-40 vote, with every Republican voting for it and every Democrat voting against it. The bill faces a dim future as Senate Democrats do not have plans to pass it.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With:

Board of Education rules on Waterloo dress code, but lawmakers may have final say

January 27, 2011 By

Waterloo parents who challenged the school district’s dress code won a victory from the State Board of Education today, but the final decision on the issue may come from the legislature. The board turned down the district’s appeal and voted unanimously to uphold an administrative law judge’s ruling that the Waterloo dress code did not meet state law because it told students what they had to wear, not what they couldn’t wear.

One of the parents who challenged the dress code,Teesha Peters, says this was a partial victory. Peters says this only dealt with one of the problems of the policy and they would have liked to see it get more involved in the content of the policy. She says their concern is that the school district should have had more parent involvement in deciding the policy.

Today’s vote will not have any impact as the Waterloo school board changed its policy soon after the judge made her ruling public, and students are still required to wear uniforms approved by the district. Peters’ husband Ricki says they are following the process and have challenged the changed rule.

Peters says they have joined about 40 other parents to file a second appeal against the rule change, but he says they have agreed along with the district to delay the second appeal to see if the legislature changes the law. He says they will be contacting their legislators about the issue and he encourages all parents to weigh in on the issue. “I don’t care how you feel about it, let the legislature know,” Peters says.

Peters says the district created at moving target by changing the rule and forcing another appeal. Until it’s decided they will be able to keep their mandate on the color and type of clothes students can wear — rules he says are too restrictive. He asked reporters why the district can tell students they can’t wear plaid shirt.

Peters pointed to his shirt and said he could not wear it as a student because it has gray on the collar and not blue. “Simply because it is blue with a gray collar, you can’t wear it, it is just crazy,” Peters said.

Waterloo school district attorney, Steve Weidner, argued that the district’s policy should have stood even though it didn’t follow the direct letter of the law. Weidner says, “The result and the intention was to prohibit certain things that interfered with the learning environment and safety, and as long as that was your goal, and that was what you got done….that shouldn’t sink the policy.”

Weidner says lawmakers are considering legislation that would change the current law. Weidner says the legislation would remove the current statute that talks about needing uniforms to prevent gangs and for the safety and the health of the students. He says it would take out any prohibition on rules about what the students could or couldn’t wear and would instead allow them to do whatever the district felt was needed to for the safety and health of the students. “And then however they got the job done, it would be okay,” Weidner said.

While the vote today did not solve the problem, it was needed for the parents to preserve their ability to exhaust all their attempts to administratively change the dress code before moving to the next step of a lawsuit.

Filed Under: Education, Politics & Government Tagged With:
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