Iowa Representative Phil Thompson. Photo courtesy of Iowa Legislature website

The 2019 Iowa Legislative session is over and many bills are on Governor Kim Reynolds’ desk waiting to become law, while others have already been signed into law.

District 47 Representative Phil Thompson of Jefferson says there was a lot of legislation that they dealt with this year. He says they gave an additional $90 million in state supplemental aid to K-12 public education for a total investment of $3.3 billion. Thompson points out some of the bills that were passed included allocating money for community colleges and workforce job training. They also extended the Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE) sunset date through 2051 for school infrastructure and provided grant funds to extend broadband access for accessible interest to rural areas.

He notes that some bills were bipartisan such as the additional educational funding and investment into workforce job training, while he says other bills became partisan such as the property tax reform bill. Thompson adds the last week of the session was unlike any other week since it began in January.

“Just like the rest of session, only 100-times faster. It was definitely a crazy process when a lot of people brought a lot of different priorities forward and wanted to get them done this year. It was definitely a whirlwind and I am definitely exhausted, now but I feel really good about what happened in the final week.”

Thompson welcomes comments and concerns during the interim before the next session begins next January. To contact him by email is: phil.thompson@legis.iowa.gov