Last week, we alluded to the fact that the second funnel is next week. This means that all House bills and joint resolutions have to be voted out of the Senate Committee and all Senate bills and joint resolutions have to be voted out of the House Committee. However, there are some caveats for appropriations and ways and means bills. This week, the funding formula bill was approved in Senate Appropriations Committee and the College and Career Transition bill was approved in the Senate Education Committee, so both of our priorities will be safe from the second funnel!
Here are the bills you will want to pay the most attention to in the next week.
HF 2168 requires PACs to provide electronic mail addresses, extends the deadlines for required filings to be submitted electronically from 4:30pm to 11:59pm, and increases the gift value to $10.
HF 2299 authorizes a government body to provide a requested public record in a reasonable format and provides that if a public record is published on a government body's internet site, the government body does not need to provide a copy of the public record but must notify the requester of the public record's internet site location. This bill passed out of Senate subcommittee yesterday.
HF 2453 covers the offense of a public employee or public official taking money from a public employer. It is now attached as a companion to SF 2336.
HF 2539 increases damages for those who violate open meetings laws. It passed out of Senate subcommittee yesterday.
HF 2558 (Higher Education Reform Act of 2024) requires community colleges to establish a program to allow students to complete an associate degree program while working part-time for registered employers. It also requires CCs to adopt policies and procedures that prioritizes state law over accreditation agencies, requires adoption of policies and procedures that require the prioritization of degree programs that lead to high-demand fields, and requires adoption of policies and procedures that prohibit faculty senate committees or subcommittees from having governance authority. This bill has been referred to the Senate Education Committee.
HF 2586 allows school employees to obtain a permit to carry weapons. A fiscal note has been released.
HF 2615 exempts CCTCs from the cap on shared operational functioning for supplementary weighting purposes. As our second priority, it has now passed out of the Senate Subcommittee unanimously!
HSB 721/SSB 3142 requires that any bill that increase the individual income tax rate or corporate income tax rate be adopted by at least two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the general assembly. The House version passed out of House subcommittee yesterday and the Senate version passed out of Committee yesterday.
SF 108 prohibits employers from knowingly employing unauthorized aliens. It has now been assigned to the House Labor and Workforce Committee.
SF 574 is the mega-site bill that many of you have been hearing about lately. It passed the House yesterday 89-4 and now awaits Committee assignment in the Senate.
SF 2373 is our funding formula bill that has been reassigned to the Appropriations Committee to be revoted on by another group of individuals. This week it passed out of the Committee.
SF 2377 removes community colleges from the implementation requirement for adult education and literacy programs. It passed out of Senate subcommittee this week.
SF 2391 requires community colleges to establish policies that prohibit the purchase of a food product that is misbranded as a meat product or that is a cultivated-protein food product. This bill passed out of the House Subcommittee yesterday.
For more info, our Bill Tracker is up-and-running and more details will be available here: 2024 Bill Tracker | Community Colleges for Iowa (ccforiowa.org)