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State unemployment rate now tied for second lowest nationwide

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Iowa Workforce Development employment numbers.

Iowa’s unemployment dropped down to 2.6% in July. Iowa Workforce Development spokesman, Cory Kelly, says that’s down from 2.7% in June.

“That puts Iowa tied with North Dakota for second lowest unemployment rate in the country — and an 18-year low — we haven’t seen this since July of 2000,” according to Kelly. “So, we’re sitting in an interesting spot here.”

Kelly says it is hard to tell if the rate has hit as low as it can go.

“Number one in the nation is Hawaii. They are sitting at two-point-one percent, so clearly environments can go lower than we are now. We’ll just have to see how it all shakes out,” Kelly says. The number of working Iowans is estimated to have increased by 5,200 in July. Manufacturing led the way in new jobs.

“Thirteen-hundred over the month, following another moderate gain of 900 jobs in June,” Kelly says of the manufacturing sector. “Also the financial activity sector added 600 jobs in June and continues to expand its footprint in the Iowa economy.” The construction industry had a small gain if 300 jobs — but is was the sixth consecutive month the industry added jobs.

The negative side of the job market is in retail “We saw retail shed the most jobs in July — down 3,000 — and was responsible for all the losses in trade and transportation,” Kelly says. Kelly says retail has been trending down in jobs since the start of the year as store closings were announced across the state.

“We expect that to continue, or it may continue as online sales continue to gain in popularity around the nation,” Kelly says. The state unemployment rate in July of last year was 3.1%. The U.S. unemployment rate was 3.9% percent in July.

 

School districts still looking for teachers as the opening day bell nears

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Thousands of kids will soon be heading back to school with their backpacks and school supplies — but some school districts are still scrambling to find teachers for some classes.

Teacher preparation consultant, Larry Bice, with the Iowa Department of Education says it is hard to nail down the exact number of teachers still needed. He does know there are key areas that have shortages. “For instance, physics, family and consumer science, agriculture education, those things like that, we have a good handle on how many job postings there are and how many people there are finishing programs. And so we can determine a relative shortage — a numerical shortage — for those content fields,” Bice says.

He says many of the districts still looking for teachers are smaller. “We’ve got a lot of communities that have 300, 400 people who live in those communities and it is really hard to get a teach, especially a new teacher, to move to those communities. That one though, we just don’t have a good handle on the data yet,” Bice says.

Bice says they know based on a federal measuring stick that the special education teaching jobs have been hard to fill for many years. “If we break it down into certain areas, things like teachers of visually impaired students, teachers of hearing impaired students are always at the top, we don’t even make them in Iowa,” Bice says. “But then the other special education licenses that we have — we always have a shortage of those.”

Bice says the job postings give some idea of how many openings there are, but he says you can’t get an exact count from them. He says that’s not the best way to track, because if a teacher retires at one school and then someone leaves to take that spot, that school has to advertise for a new teacher, and if a teacher leaves a third school to fill the spot at the second, then it can look like there are more job postings than there are positions.

Also adding to the shortage is a drop in new teachers entering the market. “I can tell you that the number of teachers that we produce in the state of Iowa has dropped over the last ten years — specifically over the last four or five years,” Bice says. “But that’s also a national trend. We just don’t produce as many teachers as we used to.” What happens if classes are ready to start and they don’t have enough teachers?

“They either don’t offer the course — which is horrible — or there are options. And one option that we have in Iowa is Iowa Learning Online, which is run through the Department of Ed, but they don’t teach it. You can take certain courses online,” Bice says. For some of the larger districts, teachers move around to different classrooms.

“Special education teachers, music teachers, often will teach in two or even three different buildings on different days,” he says. “So there are lots of ways that principals and superintendents are trying to meet the needs of their students within this shortage of teachers.” In some of the worst cases, schools get special licenses for teachers to fill a subject need.

“Let’s say a person is teaching math and has been working on getting a physics endorsement but has only 75 percent of the course work finished. That person can get an emergency license to teach physics,” Bice says. “It’s a conditional license and the condition is that the person has a year or two years to finish that course work and keep that license.”

Bice says Iowa is above the national average in retaining approximately 70% of its teachers in a five-year period. The national average is around 50%.

 

Rainfall pattern leaves state green on the top, brown on the bottom

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The first half of August hasn’t produced enough rainfall to help the area of the state that’s suffering the most from dry conditions.

DNR Hydrology Resources Coordinator, Tim Hall, keeps an eye on the midwest drought monitor, which put out a new report today. “Things are creeping a little bit drier and a little bit worse on the drought monitor,” Hall says. “Not a whole lot of change — but the change that was is on the drier side. So, it’s not getting any better yet.”

The water situation is dramatically different from the top of the state where lawns are green and growing — to the bottom of the state — where the grass is brown and crunchy. “It’s a very, very sharp diving line that almost runs right along I-80 between areas that are way below normal for the first two weeks of August, and areas that are way above normal,” Hall says. “So, it’s really a north-south wet-dry pattern that we’ve been in for quite awhile here.”

The drought map shows extreme to moderate drought conditions in south-central and southeast Iowa. Hall says there haven’t been many changes in that area of the state. “Those folks down there in southeast Iowa have been dealing with below normal precipitation for probably two years now,” according to Hall. “You go back 12 months and there are areas down there that are 15 or more inches below normal for the last 12 months. So, it’s an ongoing issue for them.” Hall says the positive side of the drought in that area is their drinking water supplies haven’t suffered.

“Fortunately in many places in southern Iowa individuals get their drinking water through rural water systems which pull out of some of the lakes. So, we haven’t seen a lot of drinking water shortages across that part of the state,” Hall says. “So, on a drinking water side it’s okay. On an agricultural side — clearly those folks could use a lot of rain.” Hall says we are unfortunately getting into the time of the crop development where it may be too late for rain to help in that area. He says the drinking water situation would be a lot different if the northern part of the state was dry.

“The part of the state that’s the most vulnerable to shallow groundwater issues is the northwest part of the state, and fortunately they’ve had pretty healthy rainfall this year,” Hall explains. “Had the corners of the state been flip-flopped — instead of dryness in southeast Iowa, if it had been dryness in northwest Iowa — I think the situation would be much more critical than it is now.”

Hall says that’s no consolation to the farmers in the southern part of the state who need rain. He says they will continue to watch the water situation, as precipitation always drops off as we head into the fall months, and that could make things worse.

 

State plan for Volkswagen settlement will upgrade or replace engines in vehicles

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The state has completed its plan for spending millions of dollars from the settlement with Volkswagen after the company rigged some vehicles to show they were emitting less pollution into the air.

The funds were approved in 2016 and the DOT’s Angela Poole says Iowa has been getting input and spent several months putting together a plan. “In the settlement Volkswagen was required to put $2.9 billion into an environmental mitigation trust. And out of that trust, Iowa is going to receive 21 million dollars,” Poole says. “And we can’t just spend it on anything we’d like — they actually have 21 mitigation actions.”

Iowa’s plan includes upgrading or replacing a wide variety of vehicles with engines that release less nitrous oxide (NOx) into the environment. School and transit buses are one category in the plan. “Looking at older diesel engines and replacing the engines or the actual vehicle itself,” Poole says.

Other parts of the plan would target delivery trucks, train locomotives, fork lifts and even tug boats that operate on Iowa rivers. “We actually have some strong interest in helping replace those (tugboat) engines,” Poole says. “They are very expensive, so this opens up an opportunity for those operators.” Poole says the money will be awarded in a competitive grant system, and they recipients will also be required to provide some funding.

“We’re going to put out a request for applications, most likely later this fall,” according to Poole. “We are going to have three funding cycles. We’re going to have ten years to spend the money — so the first year we are going to start asking for applications this fall and we are only going to spend a third of the money.” She says they will then spend one third of the remaining money in each of the other two more cycles. There is no requirement for the amount of emissions they must reduce when spending the money — but Poole says they will be placing some priorities when scoring the grant applications.

“We’re going to look at counties that have higher NOx emission measurements based on the E-P-A’s national emissions inventory. We’ll score projects higher if they are in counties where we had an excess of those VW vehicles So, if there is a county that had more of those vehicles in there, then we are going to mitigate what those vehicles did within that county,” she explains. “We are also going to be looking at vulnerable populations — people that are located within more industrialized urban areas.” Poole says they will combine this money with some other similar programs and they are excited about the wide range of vehicles and areas where they can help reduce emissions.

“It’s going to be fun to see how this all plays out,” Poole says. Poole says the guidelines allow a percentage of the money to be spent in administering the program, but they have decided to not use that and put all the money toward the mitigation programs. You can find out more about the program by going to the Iowa’s Volkswagen settlement website at: www.iowadot.gov/vwsettlement.

 

Transportation Commission cuts out rules governing traffic cameras

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Speed cameras in Cedar Rapids.

The Department of Transportation rules governing speed cameras that led to a lawsuit against the state are now off the books.

DOT Director of Traffic and Safety Steve Gent says the Transportation Commission took action at its meeting Tuesday. “The commission approved rescinding the automated traffic enforcement rules that the DOT worked with the Iowa Legislature to get in place to provide some oversight on the automated cameras around the state,” Gent says.

TheDOT  had ordered some cameras turned off under the rules issued in 2015. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled on April 27th of this year that the doesn’t have the authority to stop cities from using traffic cameras along interstates. Gent says the commission took action to comply with the ruling.

“This is really just the paperwork of trying to rescind those rules once we got that ruling,” he says. The said the traffic cameras rules were designed to ensure the highways were safe — and that goal hasn’t changed.

“Going forward we’ll gladly work with any city or county that wants to put automated enforcement cameras out on the primary highway system,” Gent says. “Certainly they’ll be some minor things…we’ll make sure the roadway is safe, make sure when they are implementing a system putting devices on a system that they are using proper traffic control. Some of those general things to keep everybody safe.”

He says the cameras that hange over the roadway don’t create much concern after they are installed because they don’t move. The moveable cameras raise more safety concerns. “It’s either a vehicle with a camera in it or a trailer. But we’ll accommodate either type of those,” Gent says. Gent says any change in the regulation of the cameras is now up to lawmakers to decide.

“That is totally up to legislators. The Iowa DOT, we are always available to answer questions — but we will absolutely not take any proposals to the legislature,” according to Gent. Iowa Lawmakers have tried for several years to pass a ban or other types of regulation on the traffic cameras without any success.

 

Waterloo men accused of illegally hunting deer

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Two Black Hawk County men are facing 14 charges for allegedly taking two deer out of season.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources conservation officer, Dakota Drish, says Waterloo police called him after officers found the men on the east side of the city. “They were on routine patrol and noticed a car that was illegally parked along side the road if you will. And the vehicle was running and they got out to investigate — and that’s when they noticed the illegal activity,” Drish says.

Thirty-one-year-old Paul Lu and 19-year-old Kyaw Wahny, both of Waterloo were found to have two male deer. They are each charged with: shooting firearm over water, highway or railroad right-of-way; hunting deer without a valid license; hunting without a valid hunting license; hunting without paying the habitat fee; taking deer out of season; taking deer with a prohibited rifle. They were also both given a warning for using an automobile and artificial light to hunt deer.

Drish says it was 1:26 in the morning and they believe the two men used flashlights to spot and shoot the deer in the dark. “We run into this quite often as the fall nears. They’ll use flashlights where the deer or raccoon or any other type of animal — their eyes light up and basically glow in the dark — and these subjects are able to harvest these animals illegally after the legal shooting hours and outside the season that way,” according to Drish. He credits the Waterloo officers with seeing the possible violation and calling him.

“It helps us tremendously when you have other agencies that are diligent when they run upon these types of cases and contact us and are able to work with these types of investigations,” Drish says. “So, the Waterloo Police Department did a phenomenal job in this case in particular.”

The antlers on the deer were still in velvet, which means that they had not fully completed their development.  Drish says the DNR is asking each man to pay $4,000 in restitution based on the size of the deer antlers. “On a deer that’s under 150 inches like this — the maximum that the state could be reimbursed is $10,000,” Drish explains. The men face other charges in the case of $2,244 dollars.

The two men are scheduled to appear in court today (Wednesday).

 

New website and advice on what to look for in search for Mollie Tibbetts

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Investigators in the disappearance of Mollie Tibbetts of Brooklyn gave an update on the search for the missing University of Iowa student today.

Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation assistant director Mitch Mortvedt asked again for any information people may have in the case and says they have a new website where you can go if you know something. “It is possible that Mollie came into contact with someone who has caused her harm. This person may not be a member of our community — but likely has some familiarity with the area,” Mortvedt says.

Mortvedt asks anyone with any information to go to the website: findingmollie.iowa.gov to leave a tip. He also today asked everyone to be on the lookout for someone who may’ve started acting different on July 18th — the day Tibbetts was last seen. He says there are several things to look for. “Change in normal routine. Which might include missing school, work or routine engagements without plausible explanation,” Mortvedt says. “A vehicle unexpectedly taken to a repair shop or sold or disposed of. Unexpected or intensive cleaning of a vehicle, possibly at an unusual time of day or night. Unexplained lack of contact or inability to get in touch with someone you knew on the evening of July 18th into the morning of July 19th.”

Mortvedt says if you notice any of these things, you should report them. “We invite you to visit the site findingmollie.iowa.gov. “We hope that the visual aids placed up here today and on the webpage will take you back to Wednesday July 18th,” according to Mortvedt. ” We hope the locations highlighted will jog your memories and hope you to recall important details about that day.”
DCI Special Agent Richard Rahn took questions and was asked about the locations they have highlighted.

“No specific reasons for those certain areas, but we are hoping that people will look at the map — again — to help jog their memory, basically,” Rahn says. Rahn says they have not ruled anything out and he says they are still characterizing Tibbetts; disappearance as a missing persons case. He says the number of tips coming in has not dropped off since they started the investigation.

“I can tell you that the investigative team has received in excess of 15-hundred…tips and that continues to climb. I can tell you that as an investigative team we’ve conducted over 500-plus interviews in this investigation thus far. I can tell you also that the Crimstoppers have gotten the reward up to I think $366,414,” Rahn says. Rahn again declined to talk about anything more specific to the investigation — such as the people they have interviewed or what they think may’ve happened.

“We want to keep the investigation — protect the integrity of it. And so it is not something that we do with the DCI. We just don’t provide the information on the investigation as it is ongoing,”Rahn explains. “And so, that’s why we emphasize if they think they know something, certainly provide it to us,” Rhan says.

Rahn says it continues to be a joint investigation with state, local and federal officers and they will continue working with the same goal of finding Tibbetts.

 

 

State report finds 10% of public water systems had violations in 2017

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The DNR’s annual report finds a majority of water systems had no violations in 2017.

The annual report on state water systems shows there were not diseases or deaths caused by the water in the more than 18-hundred public water systems.

The Department of Natural Resources Diane Moles oversees the water section and says only 10 percent of the systems had violations last year. Moles says there was a change that took the discovery of choliform bacteria off the list of violations.

She says almost half of the violations in the past had been under that rule and just by virtue of reducing it, the numbers go down. Last year’s report had nine months under the new rule and this year all of it was under the new rule. Moles says the rule change requires system operators to take action.

“Rather than off the bat getting the violation, what happens now is that they are required to conduct an assessment of their system,” Mole says. “We have a couple page worksheet that they have to make sure that there isn’t anything that is problem. And they also do monitoring to verify that there isn’t a problem.” She says the biggest violations now involve no following through on the required processes.

“They’re more treatment technique oriented where someone is supposed to have a certain level of chlorine and maybe they don’t have that level,” Moles says. Another issue is one that Moles says has been ongoing. “Last year we had 10 systems out of our 1,841 that had a nitrate maximum contaminant level violation,” according to Moles. She says the system operators are required to take action to reduce the nitrate levels. But as those systems are fixed, others pop up with issues.

Mole says the majority of water systems get their supply from wells. “Ninety-two percent of our over 1,800 systems are groundwater systems, and then the other eight percent are surface waters — such as reservoirs or rivers as the source — and then we have a category of influenced groundwater, which is a shallow groundwater well that is under the influence of surface water, usually a river,” Moles says.

But while a majority of the water systems get their supply from wells — Moles says the systems that use surface water are large ones and have the most customers — making up 55 percent of the Iowans who get water from a public system.

Moles says the number of public water systems continues of trend that has seen them drop in the last decade. She says this happens as more systems combine, or systems drop below the minimum number of customers. Mole says each system is required to send out an annual report and that is the best way for you to find out how any issues with your water.

“That’s where we first send people, is to the consumer confidence report, it’s also called the water quality report,” Moles says. “Every community system has to do that and provide that to their customers by July first of every year.” She encourages you to look over the report on your water system and call and ask them if you have any questions.

The DNR’s statewide report gives them an overview of the issues in the various systems. You can see that report here: http://www.iowadnr.gov/Environmental-Protection/Water-Quality/Water-Supply-Engineering/Annual-Compliance-Report

 

Iowa Supreme Court upholds part of injunction against new voting law

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State Judicial Building

The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld parts of an injunction against Iowa’s new voting law.

The League of United Latin American Citizens challenged the constitutionality of three provisions of the law and a Polk County judge granted an injunction blocking provisions of the law until the case can be heard in court.

The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the injunction against using signature matching and voter verification numbers for absentee ballots. It also keeps in place a ban on the Iowa Secretary of State using language that says voters are required to show an ID for an absentee ballot or saying an ID is required for voting in 2018.

The Supreme Court reversed the part of the injunction blocking the reduction of the early voting period from 40 to 29 days.

The ruling comes one day after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case.  The case now goes back to the district court for a trial to decide if the parts of the injunction not reversed will stand.

Here’s the court order:Voting-Law-ruling-PDF

 

Iowa Supreme Court hears Des Moines speed camera case

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Michelle Mackel

The justices of the Iowa Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the use of speed cameras in the capital city Thursday.

A group which received speed camera tickets sued the City of Des Moines and camera operators Gatso, saying their due process rights were violated. Justice Brent Appel questioned Des Moines attorney Michelle Mackel about the wording used when someone receives a speed camera ticket.

“The notice itself says judgment, it is ordered, judgment total is due, so forth and so on. And that’s — I mean it wasn’t a judgment of any kind — and then there’s an admonition bout ‘you might be referred to a collection agency’, my heavens,” Appel says. Mackel says the second page of the notice does explain the options available.

“Which very clearly states ‘you have the right to appeal this’ and gives very explicit instructions on how to do that and gets someone into that court process,” Mackel says. “And the reality is that people do that — so it’s not so mystifying that people don’t find themselves in the district court process.” The justices though suggested the overall notice was misleading to people about the process.

Justice Mark Cady.

“I think the wording could have been — and if I could go back and rewrite the notice I certainly would have made it easier,” Mackel says. Chief Justice Mark Cady responded, “What should be require of government when people are faced with this choice and all they have is this notice? You can’t examine the law very carefully to try and sort this out either.”

Mackel was asked if the notice was written to funnel people to the easiest route to pay the fine instead of proceeding to the court process.

“I believe that this process is fair and appropriate and so encouraging people to go through that as opposed to coercing them, I don’t think is an inappropriate use of that notice,” Mackel says. “But if you have to go to the municipal infraction, the city has to pay the filing and court costs don’t they,” Justice Wiggins asked, and Mackel replied “yes.”

Jim Larew

The attorney for those who got tickets, Jim Larew, says the notice pushes people to settle the issue without going to court.

“The original notice, called the notice of violation, instructs the recipient as to where to go if one wants to contest,” Larew says. “That’s a number that you call and the dialogue that Gatso provides its employee directs people to go to the administrative process,” Larew says. He says the notice is very confusing.

“It is almost impossible to say from what authority does this proceeding derive its ability to issue orders, to name its judgments as of the Iowa Supreme Court daring people to challenge it. From what authority is that created?,” Larew says. Larew says the city is using the cameras to make money and following the rules cost too much.

“What we think is, that the city having invented a municipal infraction process by ordinance consistent with Iowa law, found it to be inconvenient, found due process to be to expensive, wanted to have a high-velocity prosecution system,” according to Larew. Larew says the process used by Des Moines is a political safety valve that keeps local residents form getting too upset.

“It’s costly to have a system of municipal infractions enforcement that fully protects the rights of citizens. And if citizens aren’t willing to pay for that they have a way of expressing themselves politically. Except — and here’s the kicker — the way these are set up on interstate highways most of the people who get the tickets don’t reside in the local community and they have no way of expressing themselves politically to make that change,” Larew says. Larew says the exemption of semis is another reason why the Des Moines ordinance shows it is set up to make money and not for safety as the city contends.

“Hard to believe how you would classify and exempt semi trucks operating on the public highways and exempting them from an ordinance that was truly designed to enhance traffic safety,” Larew says. “That would defy the experience of most of the people who operate vehicles on our highways and experience the potential dangers of the big rigs as they move along.” The Iowa Supreme Court accepted new briefs in two other traffic camera cases from Cedar Rapids without hearing oral arguments in those cases. One of those cases involves a woman who says she was wrongly ticketed by an automated traffic camera on Interstate 380 in Cedar Rapids when she wasn’t speeding.