The two chambers of the Iowa Legislature have now passed their own versions of a bill that would adjust how the Area Education Agencies (AEAs) would function.
The Iowa House originally passed its own AEA bill to the Senate on February 29th, and earlier this week the Iowa Senate amended the legislation and sent it back to the House. One of the main proposals from the Senate is that school districts have more control over the funding for special education services that are currently from the AEAs, including hiring private companies to provide those services. District 24 Senator Jesse Green (R-Boone) has been a proponent of, using the “fee for service” mentality.
In the original bill that was passed by the House, the legislation specifically stated to keep the services solely with the AEAs, while a task force would be charged with reviewing those services before any adjustments would be made. Green disagrees with that portion of the House bill.
“In my opinion, we’ve had task forces in the past and I’m not sure why we need another one. We had a really thorough task force in 2011, I believe it was, they gave us a report, and absolutely nothing was done as a result of that task force. So I suppose if we want to form another one we can, but I just don’t think that’s really necessary.”
House District 47 Representative Carter Nordman (R-Panora) shares his thoughts on Senator Green’s comments.
“If Senator Green disagrees with our bill that’s just fine we’ll continue to work on it. I’m not sure how much further my (Republican House) caucus is willing to go on AEAs. This is still in negotiations, there are different ideas between the governor, the Senate and the House, and I think that’s a good thing. I think there’s robust conversation going on about a very large government agency.”
The bill is continuing to be discussed among the Republican leadership in both the Senate and House, along with Governor Kim Reynolds. You can click the link below to view the bill.
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=90&ba=HF2612