There is one more week until the second legislative funnel. This means any bill the House has sent to the Senate must pass a committee to remain alive this year. This excludes Appropriation bills and Ways and Means bills.

Economic development

This week, the House passed Senate File 574, a bill to spur economic growth across Iowa. There are two important pieces of policy in this bill. First, this bill establishes a major economic growth attraction (MEGA) program under IEDA. This program uses tax credits and a sales tax refund to incentivize major projects to come to Iowa to do business. This bill is particularly important to Fort Dodge for economic development. Countries declared to be our adversaries, like China, cannot participate in this program.

Second, this bill appropriates $300,000 to the Iowa Economic Development Authority for certification costs of certified sites in rural Iowa. This money must be spent on what the Iowa House has coined “Freedom Sites,” which must be in counties with a population of less than 50,000. This money can be used on two certified sites per congressional district each year, up to $30,000 each. The House wants to make sure that we’re making economic development a priority everywhere in this state, not just near the big cities.

Mental health legislation in all committees

This session, the legislature has advanced seven bills to address mental health care in Iowa. These bills build on the work the legislature has done over the last six years to expand access to mental health care, increase workforce, increase Medicaid rates, create sustainable long–term funding of the mental health regions, and provide an emphasis on children’s mental health care.

The below list includes the status of each bill as of March 7.

• Children’s mental health — House File 2402 provides for an enhanced rate for psychiatric medical institutions for children that care for children with specialized needs and makes regulatory changes to PMICs based on feedback from providers. This bill passed the Iowa House and has been assigned to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

• Access center transportation — House File 2397 requires DHHS to authorize payments to ambulances transporting mental health patients in crisis to an access center at a similar amount to when transporting to an ER. This bill passed the Iowa House and has been assigned to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

• Social work compact — House File 2512 establishes an interstate license for social workers after seven states have joined the compact. Two states currently have enacted this compact (Missouri and South Dakota). 26 states have pending legislation. The compact is effective upon seven states joining. This bill passed the Iowa House and has been assigned to the Senate State Government Committee.

• Direct supervision and licensure by endorsement — House File 2515 creates licensure by endorsement for licensed marital and family therapists and licensed mental health counselors. This bill also prohibits live and recorded direct observation of client interaction for LMFTs, LMHCs, and social workers. This bill passed the Iowa House and has been assigned to the Senate State Government Committee.

• Behavioral health system — House File 2509 comes from the governor to transition the current county run mental health and disability services regional system to a state behavioral health service system with state contracted administrative service organizations governed by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. This bill is in the House Appropriations Committee.

• The behavioral health service system has the purpose of prevention, education, early intervention, treatment, recovery support, and crisis services for mental health, substance use, tobacco use, and problem gambling.

• DHHS will divide the state into behavioral health districts with ASOs to oversee each district and its behavioral health services. ASOs will be selected through RFP. Each district will have a district behavioral health advisory council.

• The bill directs the funds from the federal community health mental health services block grant and the federal substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant to DHHS.

• Creates a central data repository for behavioral health data with demographic information, expenditure data, and services and supports provided to individuals.

• Establishes a behavioral health fund, with similar funding to the existing annual increases based on a state growth factor. The bill prohibits an ASO from spending more than 7% on administrative costs.

• This bill requires DHHS to designate aging and disability resource centers to establish a coordinated system of providing assistance to persons with disabilities and the elderly.

Timeline:

• Sept. 30, 2024 — DHHS must post transition plan online and update quarterly

• April 1, 2025 — DHHS will designate the districts and their ASOs

• July 1, 2025 — the behavioral health system and ADRCs are implemented

• Social Media for Minors — House File 2523 requires parental consent for minors to access social media. There are many studies that show increased depression in youth using social media. This bill has passed the Iowa House and awaits assignment of a Senate Committee.

• Therapeutic Classrooms — House File 2631 allows the Iowa Department of Education to retain and repurpose unspent therapeutic classroom transportation funds to support additional therapeutic classroom grants. The bill passed the Iowa House and has been assigned to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

• Clinical Privileges — House File 2210 prohibits questions regarding past mental illness or substance use disorders for clinical privileges or licensure applications for health professions. This bill passed the Iowa House and has been assigned to Senate State Government Committee.

• Voluntarily Holding Firearms — House File 2421 allows a person to voluntarily handover their firearm to a FFL dealer for safekeeping. This allows gunowners who are in mental health distress to give their property over while in crisis and have it returned when they are prepared. This bill passed the Iowa House and has been assigned to Senate Judiciary Committee.

Education Committee

Thursday, we passed HF2630 off the House Floor. This bill raises the minimum teacher starting salary to $47,500 in year one and $50,000 in year two. It also provides $14 million for educational support staff to get up to $15 an hour and provides $22 million for TSS to help with salary schedules.

State Rep. Ann Meyer, R–Fort Dodge, represents Fort Dodge and eastern Webster County.