• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Education / Details still remain as Legislators try to wrap up session

Details still remain as Legislators try to wrap up session

May 3, 2006 By admin

The old saying is that the devil’s in the details, and Iowa lawmakers are bedeviled today as they try to wrap up the work of the 2006 Legislative session.

Senate Republican Leader Mary Lundby of Marion says at one point this (Wednesday) morning, senators couldn’t even vote because the Senate computer system wouldn’t work. “The computer glitch slowed us down a bit so we’re moving a little slower than we expected today,” Lundby says.

Another sticking point: the details haven’t been ironed out yet on the teacher pay package. “The teacher pay and the ed policy pieces are so crucial to the entire picture this year that to think that we could just run those smoothly and smile and sing Kum-By-Ya was probably a little unrealistic on my part,” Lundby says.

Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs says the actual wording of the teacher pay plan — the part that starts to link pay hikes to classroom performance — is unresolved. “There continue to be negotiations about the language in the teacher salary bill,” Gronstal says. There’s also been a flurry of last-minute activity as lobbyists for the TouchPlay industry and a couple of sympathetic legislators try to get a compromise that would allow the machines to operate for a few more months so TouchPlay owners can recoup more of their investment.

Gronstal, the leader of Democrats in the Senate, says action is still possible. “Twenty, 30, 40 businesses going bankrupt is not a good outcome,” Gronstal says. “We ought to have a mechanism to mitigate the damages for those companies.”

Senate Co-President Jeff Lamberti, a Republican from Ankeny, says he’s heard wildly different estimates of the “damages” the TouchPlay owners will suffer, anywhere from 30-million to nine-hundred million. “Up to this point we have had no high degree of confidence in the numbers that have been provided,” Lamberti says.

Lamberti’s father started the Casey’s General Stores chain, a competitor of the Kum ‘N Go convenience store chain which invested heavily in TouchPlay.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Education, Politics / Govt Tagged With: Democratic Party, Legislature, Republican Party

Featured Stories

Governor signs Iowa Renewable Fuels Standard into law

Jury returns guilty verdict in shooting death of State Trooper

A haboob, a dust storm black out, hits northwest Iowa

Summit has easements for 20% of carbon pipeline route through Iowa

Morel mushroom hunters on hold without warmer conditions

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Iowa’s Huckstorf garners national award

Iowa Special Olympics Summer games set to open in Ames

Radio Iowa/Baseball Coaches Association High School Poll 5/16/22

Iowa assistant coach Kirk Speraw to retire

Northern Iowa prepares for Missouri Valley Conference softball tournament

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2022 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC