Iowa's 2023 Session Ends

The Iowa Legislature completed its work for the year on May 4, six days after the 110 days they are paid to work in Des Moines.  

Both House and Senate spent long hours waiting for committees and staff to get the final budget bills ready for a vote.  During that final week, legislators voted out 64 policy and budget bills before adjourning just after Noon on Thursday, May 4th.  

The Governor must sign the bills before they can become law.  She can also veto them, which stops them from becoming law.  The Governor now has 30 days to sign (or veto) the bills passed by the Legislature (until June 5).  You can follow the progress in our Bill Tracker, which will be updated each day bills are signed. Our final session review will be included in our Summer Issue of INFONET, which will be mailed and emailed at the end of June.   

You can ask the Governor to sign a bill that you like into law or ask for her to veto something you do not like.  Either way, you can do it easily from our Take Action Center.

Final Budget Passed in Final Week

Legislators finalized the budget for state fiscal year 2024, which begins on July 1, 2023.  They will spend about $1 billion less than they are allowed by law to spend, reserving that money for future tax cuts.  Here are a few highlights from the budgets:

• $5.5 million to keep rates for Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) at current levels.  Last year, legislators used federal money to increase rates, so they had to use state dollars to sustain the rates.

• $13 million to increase rates for behavioral health services ($10 million for mental health, $3 million for substance use disorder treatment).

• $500,000 to take people off waiting lists for public guardian services.  There are a lot of people who need a public guardian and there are not enough staff to handle the requests right now.

• $15 million to increase nursing home rates.  Nursing homes are also being asked to take sex offenders who need long-term care. This could be used to help increase security and allow them to develop this line of service.

• Puts money from the sale of Glenwood into a special fund to improve other HHS institutions.  Legislators want to make sure other institutions like Woodward State Resource Center are following the Americans with Disability Act and address all the problems the US Department of Justice found with Glenwood.

• Allows the Health Policy Oversight Committee to meet annually (or not at all).  Right now, this legislative committee is required to meet twice a year.

• Clarifies that the new household asset test in SF 494 only applies to the Supplemental Needs Assistance Program (SNAP), not Medicaid.  However, SNAP asset tests will also impact Iowans with disabilities.  

• Establishes a Public Assistance Modernization Fund using $8 million from a lawsuit the state won against former MCO Iowa Total Care.  This fund would allow the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create a single portal that will help people find out what they are eligible for and allow them to apply for those programs through that portal.   It also will implement the new verification system and asset tests for SNAP.  

• Directs cities and counties to regulate HCBS waiver homes as residences, not large facilities.  Right now, these homes are required to install very expensive sprinkler systems that you might see in a business or hospital, not a home or apartment.  With rising costs of housing, this will help keep the cost of community living down without compromising safety.

• $50,000 increase Farmers with Disabilities Program. Easter Seals runs this program to help provide support to farmers with disabilities.

• No increase for Vocational Rehabilitation.  There was hope for a $150,000 increase in this budget, which would have been matched by $400,000 in federal funds. 

• New funding for the LEAD-K program that was passed into law in 2022. LEAD-K stands for “Language Equity and Acquisition for Deaf Kids” and is a national movement to make sure that all children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing enter Kindergarten with age-appropriate language skills.  This is the first time the effort has been funded and was a welcome surprise at the end of session.

• Cut Area Education Agencies (AEAs) by $22 million.  After all the changes to education this year, this was an unwelcome surprise.  AEAs had been telling legislators that they will lose funding this year because of the Governor’s education reform bill that allowed public money to be used in private schools.  AEAs are required to provide special education services to students in both public and private schools, but they only get state funding for the students they serve in public schools.  With more state funding going to private schools, that means less state funding going to public schools, including the AEAs.  The impact of this is hard to know right now, but this is something that will be discussed in 2024. Read our white paper on the Educational Savings Accounts here.

You can read about the budgets in more detail in our Bill Tracker, including links to the non-partisan staff reviews of the bills.

In-Person Caucus Requirement Survives

With only three weeks left in the legislative session, the House Ways and Means Committee introduced a bill that could make participating in the Iowa Caucuses more difficult for Iowans with disabilities.  The Iowa Democratic Party and the Republican Party of Iowa hold their caucuses on a Monday night. This is when Iowans pick their preference for President, as well as develop a list of priorities they want their party to talk about in the coming election.  

Iowa’s caucuses have always been in-person, but that has limited participation.  People who work evenings, people with disabilities or older Iowans that rely upon others for transportation and staffing, and people with kids in various activities have always been challenged to attend an in-person caucus.  The Iowa Democratic Party tried to address this by allowing voters who could not attend in person to mail-in a preference form.  Republican on the other hand say that Iowans must continue the tradition of in-person caucuses in order to save the “first in the nation” status that the Republicans still have.  

The first draft of the bill (House File 716) also required people to be registered to vote and registered with the political party 70 days in advance of the caucus.  Currently, Iowans can register to vote and change their party at the caucus.  Fortunately, that part came out.  Instead, political parties were given the right to set their own rules for caucus participation, including registration requirements.  This gives political parties the option to require the 70-day advance registration but doesn’t require it for all parties.  That means the Republicans or Democrats could still require advance registration to participate.  

What this means for you (the caucus-goer) is still unknown.  If this bill is signed into law, we’ll be watching how the two major political parties (Democrats and Republicans) react and the rules they adopt for the caucuses.  The Iowa DD Council has worked hard to make sure the caucuses are accessible.  We will make sure that Iowans with disabilities know their options as the rules for the caucuses come out later this year.  

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infoNET is the disability policy project of the Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council and its network of Iowans with Disabilities in Action.

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This project is supported by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $774,176 with 100 percent funding by ACL/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACL/HHS, or the U.S. Government.