Storms this spring pounded southern Iowa counties in particular, and that will cost county budgets. Brian Moore is county The American Electronics Association is out with is latest ranking of states according to their high-tech economies. The Association’s Dennis Sienko says Iowa’s 45-thousand high-tech workers earn a wage far higher than the state average. The “Cyberstates” report collected by the A-E-A finds 23-million spent in the state by venture capital investors, and one-point-one billion dollars spent on research and development, due in part to the state’s universities. The state’s strongest hi-tech business areas are communications services, data processing, and defense electronics manufacturing. Iowa’s 27th in the nation in high-tech employment as 16,600 jobs were added in the past half-decade, the 23rd largest increase in the U.S. High-tech businesses employ 37 out of every thousand workers, and their average pay of 42-thousand dollars is 52-percent higher than average pay. While the state isn’t exactly a leader of Silicon Valley, Sienko says the high-tech job field is growing in Iowa.The high-tech payroll in 1999 was 1-point-eight Billion dollars in Iowa, which put us 29th nationally. Exports of technology products totaled 442-million dollars, almost ten percent of Iowa’s total exports. The report, titled “Cyberstates,” puts Iowa 35th in the nation for home Internet access, 27th in high-tech employment and 45th in high-tech average wage.