AP PHOTO The Iowa Capitol building is viewed Jan. 7, 2020, in Des Moines.

AREA — Come Monday, Marshall County will officially be represented by three new faces at the Capitol — District 52. Rep. David Blom (R-Marshalltown), District 51 Rep. Brett Barker (R-Nevada) and District 26 Sen. Kara Warme (R-Ames) — while longtime incumbent District 53 Rep. Dean Fisher (R-Montour) will continue to serve the majority of neighboring Tama County in the Iowa House.

Each of the four lawmakers recently spoke to the T-R about their goals for the 91st session as well as the issues that matter to them most.

Barker: Rural health care, prescription drug access are key priorities

Barker

Barker, a pharmacist who served as the mayor of Nevada before winning his election over Democrat Ryan Condon in November, is excited to get to work for District 51, which includes most of Marshall County outside of Marshalltown and the southeast quadrant as well as a large swath of Story County excluding Ames. He will replace Dave Deyoe, a fellow Republican from Nevada who had held office since 2007 before opting to retire after the most recent session.

“I feel fortunate that getting up to speed and my learning curve (are) a little bit lower than it could otherwise be just because of some of the work I’ve already done before on healthcare policy and just in the political realm, knowing a lot of folks at the Capitol already, knowing how the process works, you know, how the Capitol functions, is really, really helpful. And then already having my grasp on some of the policy helps,” he said. “With my committee assignments, I’m excited to get to work on healthcare policy and continue to do that. Also, on the commerce committee, I’ll get to be involved in insurance policy, energy policy (and) other things that are really important to Iowans.”

Furthermore, Barker will also serve on the economic growth committee, which dovetails with his mayoral experience in Nevada, as well as the Natural Resources committee and Health and Human Services budget subcommittee. Once he assumes his seat, he will be the only professional pharmacist in the Iowa House, and one of his major objectives will be to work on the affordability of prescription drugs along with access to pharmacies themselves in rural areas. He remains optimistic that Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) reform will get over the finish line in the U.S. Congress, and he also hopes to address the rising cost of energy for constituents both in his district and around the state.

After the legislature passed a set of sweeping reductions of individual state income taxes over the last few sessions, Barker anticipates that the property tax system will come next.

“It’s very complex, and so it’s important to make sure that we spend time to fully vet whatever does make it across the finish line so that we don’t have to go back in next year and clean it up because of unintended consequences,” he said. So I know that’ll be something we’ll have a lot of conversation (about). Local governments, rightly so, I know are concerned and watching where that conversation goes. They provide critical infrastructure and other public safety services in our communities, and also, local governments are a huge part of making our communities vibrant and growing and attracting jobs. and residents. So we don’t want to do something that will inhibit those things.”

He is optimistic about the prospect of striking a balance between the concerns of taxpayers who feel they are paying too much and the aforementioned local government officials. Currently, he isn’t aware of any concrete proposals, but Barker expects those conversations to be ongoing once the session officially begins.

The rollback system, which ensures that a parcel is only taxed at a percentage of its assessed value, is a tool to protect residents from large increases, and Barker would like to see it reviewed and examined to see if any changes are needed.

“My preference would be let’s have a conversation with all the stakeholders to make sure that we really have something that will go forward and stand the test of time because I think what you see is that when the legislature chips away at property tax with small measures every two or three sessions, it kind of paralyzes the system,” he said. “So local governments are afraid because of the uncertainty to make changes that they otherwise may make. And so we just need to provide certainty going forward (about) what it’s gonna look like and come up with something that we don’t have to go back time after time and continue to adjust.”

A more local issue Barker has heard about from his constituents is rural Story County residents feeling that they don’t have a voice in their government because the Board of Supervisors is elected at large, with Ames comprising the majority of the population.

“Folks who are in the middle of Ames, maybe associated with the campus, they’re gonna look for different things out of their county government than a farmer by Zearing who’s more worried about septic policy and secondary roads, and so finding a way to make sure those people in the rural parts of the county have a voice and feel enfranchised in county government will be one thing that I’ll be working on from a local government standpoint.”

Most of all, he looks forward to continuing to meet more constituents and discussing opportunities for the state government to act on their behalf. Barker can be reached at brett.barker@legis.iowa.gov.

Blom: Protect blue collar jobs, ease property tax burden

Blom

At 27 years old, Blom, a union sheet metal worker with Raymon Enterprises in Albion and a resident of Marshalltown, will be one of the Iowa House’s youngest members when he takes his seat on Monday. He narrowly defeated two-term Democratic incumbent Sue Cahill, also of Marshalltown, in the November election to represent District 52, which includes the city and the southeast quadrant of Marshall County.

“I’m really excited. It’s been good to visit with different groups, everyone from the Resident Council at the Veterans Home to seeing the Robert E. Morris Day Program, the Farm Bureau and every group in between, and so just really listening to people in the community and hearing what the community’s priorities are,” he said. “I know a lot of people want to stay in their homes, and so (I’ll be) working on making sure the people who have invested into their homes and worked hard aren’t overburdened by property taxes. So I know that there’s going to be bold proposals, and so it’s important that we listen to everyone on both sides that are gonna be involved in that process this session.”

He hopes to use his experience with Raymon to serve as an advocate for Iowa’s blue collar workers in Des Moines, especially those who have been adversely affected by recent layoffs at places like John Deere. Blom will serve as the vice chair of the House Commerce Committee, and he will also sit on the Veterans Affairs Committee, the Local Government Committee, the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Committee and the Appropriations Committee.

Additionally, Blom hopes to advocate for area farmers while addressing food and housing insecurity within Marshalltown and Marshall County.

“As a midsize city, we’ve got some unique challenges, and so continuing to find opportunities for economic growth but also making sure that we prioritize the people of all backgrounds we have here, making sure that their voices are heard and that the decisions that are made across the state are in their best interest (will be important),” he said.

Whether residents of the district voted for him or not, Blom, a former legislative clerk under Fisher, said he hopes they will feel comfortable reaching out to him with their questions and concerns. He also expressed his support for increasing the level of State Supplemental Aid (SSA) allocated for school districts each year.

Blom can be reached at david.blom@legis.iowa.gov.

Fisher: Property tax issues should be handled locally

Fisher

Fisher, who is entering his seventh term in office, won re-election over Grinnell Democrat Tommy Hexter by about 13 percentage points in November, and he anticipates property tax reform being the signature issue of the 2025 session, whether he likes it or not.

“I’m just completely perplexed by the issue because we’ve made some attempts in years past to put some sunshine on the issue and try to limit the growth a bit, but we’re not the ones spending that money in Des Moines. It’s the counties and the cities and the schools. We really should leave that up to them,” he said. “People are coming to the legislature because they think property taxes are rising too fast, but it’s not really us spending that money. They need to go to their county supervisors and their school boards and their city councils.”

If the legislature puts a hard cap on growth, he added, Fisher worries it will “screw up” a lot of counties.

“Generally, I don’t believe our counties are overspending. It’s just that costs are rising so much,” he said. “That’s the bottom line. It just comes down to (the fact that) things aren’t getting any cheaper. Maintaining our roads and paying our county employees comes with a cost.”

As a result of the passage of House File 718, county boards of supervisors, city councils and school boards were required to hold standalone hearings on their budgets last year — most of which, in Marshall County at least, were lightly attended. During three previous sessions, Fisher has filed a bill to strike gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Code, and he said he’ll “hold his breath and wait and see” if the issue resurfaces in 2025.

Fisher will once again serve as the chair of the House Environmental Protection Committee and continue to hold seats on the Natural Resources, Ag Policy and Public Safety committees. An issue the Environmental Protection Committee plans to study this year is water usage and water levels in aquifers due to the state becoming something of a hub for data centers that use high volumes of water.

“As far as I know, and this is part of what I’ve got to study, they might be pumping water out of the ground for their cooling systems, and maybe instead of that, they need to have a cooling pond,” Fisher said. “The same issue applies with these proposed CO2 pipelines. They’re supposedly gonna use 3 billion gallons of water every year. That’s a lot of water, so maybe we need to understand what that impact’s gonna be on our water levels.”

Another bill he’s filed in the past and plans to continue pushing is one that allocates state funds for the demolition of vacant school buildings, noting that there are currently at least three in Tama County (Montour, Clutier and Birmingham Township) and three more in Poweshiek County.

“They’re not only eyesores. I think they’re dangerous for children,” Fisher said.

Fisher can be reached at dean.fisher@legis.iowa.gov.

Warme: Youth mental health is a focus

Warme

As the chief development officer with YSS, Warme, who defeated Democrat Mike Wolfe in the race to replace retiring two-term Sen. Jeff Edler (R-State Center), is excited to bring her nonprofit experience and “outsider” perspective to the Capitol.

“Healthy families, especially from a mental health perspective, will be a priority for me. I’m excited that Brett and I will both be serving on the Health and Human Services Committee and get a chance to dig into some of those issues,” she said. “A specific place I’m really excited for that is to think hard about our cell phone policies in schools in Iowa. I mention that in my column, and the governor has said that’s gonna be a topic for her but I haven’t seen how detailed or what her policy will look like. From my perspective, I really see the mental health impact, and we face that in kids and families that we help at YSS and I saw it as a substitute teacher trying to be in a classroom where there were so many distractions from cell phones and cell phones keeping kids from talking to each other and connecting and building relationships that are really important for mental health as well.”

To that end, she has been conversing with superintendents, teachers and parents in the district in hopes of heading down to the Capitol and advocating for ways to help — even if that means being the bad guy so teachers don’t have to, comparing the issue to secondhand smoke.

“We’ve done a lot for parental choice and really prioritizing parents making the best choice for their kids, but I can make a choice not to give my kids a phone and if everybody around them has one everywhere they go in a school building, it’s kind of like secondhand smoke, right? They’re still going to face those same mental health and social and learning impacts,” she said. “And so this might be one of those public health things that we really want to address at a broader level and come together for the sake of the mental health of our kids and be willing to be inconvenienced a little bit as adults, and that might be worth it when it’s a public health situation like this.”

YSS of Marshall County has been actively involved in facilitating the Marshalltown Police and Community Team or MPACT program, which embeds two social workers within the Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) to handle non-emergent, non-criminal calls for service, and securing long-term funding has been an ongoing discussion as it has thus far run on contributions from the city of Marshalltown, federal grants and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars.

MPACT and similar programs like it, Warme said, should be viewed as cost saving measures for communities looking to reduce incarceration and emergency room visits, connect individuals with the services they need and allow law enforcement officers to focus on more pressing matters. With the transition from mental health regions to seven behavioral health districts set to begin soon, she sees an opportunity to promote them and potentially utilize opioid settlement funds to pay for them.

Like her fellow legislators, Warme has heard frequent concerns about the rising costs of energy, groceries and other necessities, and she hopes to be “part of the team” protecting the income tax cuts already enacted into law while exploring how to reduce the overall property tax burden.

“From an overall perspective, we want to control the budget and be really cognizant of any new spending knowing that people are already hurting from a tax perspective. And so the ideal would be to be growing our tax base, so what can we do that invites and protects good jobs in our district and in our state?” she asked. “So those are things that are certainly not different from the direction of the caucus overall, but I would agree are important.”

She will be serving on the Commerce, Appropriations and Veterans Affairs committees — the last of which is especially meaningful to Warme as the daughter of a career Navy man and the Senator representing residents and staff of the Iowa Veterans Home. She also hopes that policies proposed will take the unique history (including recent natural disasters) and diversity of Marshalltown, District 26’s largest city, into account.

So far, she has been impressed with the community’s public-private partnerships, citing the Arts+Culture Alliance and grants from the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) for projects in the Linn Creek District as prime examples of “success stories.” Additionally, in light of the likelihood that property taxes will be addressed in some form, she acknowledged a desire to find a compromise that won’t hamstring local governments in the future.

“There are about 2,000 taxing entities in our state, and so yes, it’s complex, and it has to be a balance. We need services, right? We absolutely need emergency services and roads and bridges, and we have a lot of infrastructure and Brett’s a great resource on those things,” she said. “As we think long-term, if folks can be open to a brainstorm and a new solution that maybe isn’t on the table yet. So just being creative and open to what might be structural changes or sharing between counties, sharing between city and county, new ways to meet those same needs. Just making sure that we can gather input from stakeholders and try to be creative because we know it’s not sustainable for property taxes to continue to increase at the rate they’ve been increasing. I think everybody agrees with that, and I don’t think we exactly know what the solution is yet, and so it’ll be great to dive in and see what comes to the table that can bring some relief for taxpayers but also maintain services that keep our communities great.”

Warme encouraged voters of “all persuasions and no persuasions” to reach out to her during the session, and she can be contacted at kara.warme@legis.iowa.gov.

“That’ll be a priority for me to be trying to increase that civil dialogue and break down some of that divide that’s there, so I hope that people feel that,” she said.