At a national governor’s conference today in Washington D.C., Governor Kim Reynolds says she has decided not to push for an interim step this year. Reynolds has set a goal of getting rid of the state income tax by the end of 2026, according to the Des Moines Register.
Reynolds and the rest of the nation’s governors are meeting this weekend and the governor made her comments at a forum today sponsored by the Cato Institute. Reynolds, who is chair of the Republican Governors Association, said 15 of her fellow Republican governors are proposing tax reductions in their states this year.
Reynolds has signed three tax cut packages since taking office in mid-2017. The one she signed a year ago has ended state taxes on retirement income and will reduce Iowa’s individual income tax to a single rate of three-point-nine percent in 2026.
Iowa’s attorney general is joining two dozen states in a challenge to new federal regulations on pistols with stabilizing braces. The states are suing to block a gun-control action touted by President Joe Biden, after the accessories were used in two mass shootings. Radio Iowa reports Brenna Bird is one of several Republican attorneys general have joined conservative and gun-rights groups.
The President wants to treat the guns like short-barreled rifles, a weapon like a sawed-off shotgun that has been heavily regulated since the 1930s.
The cases argue that millions of people have guns with the braces and use them to make firing “more accurate, and therefore safer," according to one of the Texas lawsuits, filed on behalf of three veterans by the conservative Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
Lutheran Services in Iowa (LSI) will use a $35,000 Iowa Women's Foundation grant to expand its in-home child care provider training program for refugee and immigrant women in the Sioux City area.
LSI's Child Care Business Development (CCBD) was founded in 2012 in an effort to address a gap in appropriate child care options for refugee and immigrant families, according to The Sioux City Journal.
For the first time in five years, the unions representing Sioux City’s teachers and various other staff are negotiating their full contracts.
Yesterday, the Sioux City Education Association and the Sioux City Education Support Personnel Association presented their opening proposals for the 2023-2028 master contracts.
The SCEA proposed a 6.6 percent base salary increase and an $800 increase to longevity pay. The percentage increase would result in a $2,506 base pay increase, from $37,966 to $40,472,
The Iowa Natural Resources Commission has approved spending $75,000 on a filter system for the Spirit Lake fish hatchery in Dickinson County to improve the production of muskies.
Radio Iowa reports that a DNR fisheries supervisor says the system is needed to obtain better water to raise the fish. He says the gas supersaturation in the water they use from Big Spirit Lake is a natural phenomenon. He says the supersaturation caused up to 60 percent of the fish to die, and 26 percent of the fish had deformities and were removed in 2022.
The new system will solve the gas problem and also keep out the potential zebra mussel larva.
The hatchery also has northern pike and walleyes, but they will not be grown in this system. “
Lutheran Services in Iowa (LSI) will use a $35,000 Iowa Women's Foundation grant to expand its in-home child care provider training program for refugee and immigrant women in the Sioux City area.
LSI's Child Care Business Development (CCBD) was founded in 2012 in an effort to address a gap in appropriate child care options for refugee and immigrant families.
LSI said in a statement that Sioux City is home to its second resettlement office in the state and that there is a need for culturally-appropriate child care that fits the schedules of the refugees and immigrants in the area.
South Dakota pharmacists believe a bill that would provide more transparency in prescription drug pricing by pharmaceutical companies is one of the ways to address those problems, according to the Argus Leader.
That bill, HB 1135, unanimously passed the House Commerce and Energy Committee on Wednesday after over an hour and a half of discussion and testimony at the Capitol in Pierre.
Over 20 pharmacies have closed across South Dakota since 2018. And over 55% of the state’s counties either lack a pharmacy or only have one.
The industry is facing a pharmacy technician shortage, and a looming pharmacist shortage.
