Editor’s note: The Waverly Newspapers publishes on occasion columns and legislative updates from several elected officials in the Iowa Legislature, as well as in the U.S. Congress. The opinions, comments and views expressed in these elected official reports are solely those of the author and do not represent, nor are they endorsed by, the Waverly Newspapers or its parent company.
2025 Legislative Session Accomplishments — Part 1
I will cover the accomplishments of the 2025 legislative session in two parts, first this week and then next week. The legislative session for 2025 ended on May 15 at 6 a.m. at the end of an overnight stint.
It was a productive session and many of the issues on which I have campaigned and worked made good progress. I hope you can see that, even though work remains for us to do, promises were kept and that I did what I said I was going to do and what I was elected to do.
Budget, Taxes, and Jobs
When I campaigned for office I said I would work for: fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget, lower taxes, taxpayer protection, and an economic climate favorable to more and better job and career opportunities
What we did:
Balanced the budget: We passed a conservative budget that puts taxpayers first as we have done for the past decade, one that spends $9.4 billion, $478 million over last year’s budget. This is a fiscally responsible budget that fills the emergency reserve funds to their required levels while leaving a healthy ending balance which allows us to be able to respond to unexpected expenses or shortfalls.
The 3.8% tax cut as well as previous tax cuts are having their expected initial effect, which is a dip in the state’s revenue. However, the legislature has been setting aside enough money during past years to be able to keep the state’s priorities of education, health care and public safety funded and even provide increases. We are expecting that the state’s revenues will recover and eventually increase as historically they have done when tax cuts are enacted. That has been the effect when money goes back into taxpayer’s pockets.
We made sure the essential priority functions of state government were funded, like education, workforce programs, Medicaid, rural health care, nursing homes, services for the disabled, mental health, public safety, the prison system, our court system, and soil conservation and water quality commitments, etc. Basically, we are managing the budget the same as you have to do in your home or business. No matter what, there will always be more needs and requests than the taxpayers for state government can fulfill.
Governor’s disaster recovery update: Creates a new disaster recovery funding program to be used for disaster response, disaster recovery activities or disaster aid to citizens. Also protects homeowners from predatory insurance practices by licensing adjusters and appraisers so the Iowa Insurance Division can more easily catch and penalize bad actors.
Unemployment insurance tax reform: Reduces the taxable wage base by half, lowers the maximum tax rate, and simplifies the unemployment tax system, saving businesses $1 billion over the next five years. Encourages existing businesses to reinvest these savings into employee salary, benefits and seasonal unemployment.
Tax Increment Financing (TIF) reform: Updates TIF law to curb abuses of TIF over the years which has led to a waste of taxpayer money and has made those funds unavailable to cities and counties.
Property tax abatement for volunteer EMS: Creates a new property tax abatement program for volunteer EMS providers whose home is in the service area in which they volunteer. Certain qualifications apply.
Grain Indemnity Fund modernization: Updates the Grain Indemnity Fund established after the Farm Crisis of the '80s to ensure farmers would be paid for their grain stored at an elevator if the elevator went under financially. Changes the floor and ceiling of the Grain Indemnity Fund to $8 million and $16 million respectively. Extends coverage for certain credit sale contracts.
Medicaid expansion work requirement: Requires Iowa Health and Wellness Plan members (Medicaid expansion recipients) who are able-bodied adults ages 19-64 to work a minimum of 80 hours per month (about 20 hours per week). Certain exemptions will apply. About 170,000 able-bodied adults are on Medicaid expansion. About 100,000 of those are not working. Iowa expanded Medicaid in 2013.
The goal is to encourage individuals to work and gain the life skills necessary to be responsible to make their own living. It should go without saying, people who can work, should. People who can work and choose not to reduce the resources available for those people who are unable to work and truly need the assistance. In addition, many sectors of the Iowa economy are in serious need of workers, and this should help fill that need.
Governor’s Rural Health Care bill: Rolls all current health care professionals’ financial incentive plans we currently have into a newly created Health Care Professional Incentive Program Fund that will target loans to medical professionals that are in high demand. They will be required to practice for five years in rural areas of the state where they are scarce. Also, utilizing federal money, there will be about 115 new medical residency slots annually over four years at Iowa’s 14 teaching hospitals.
U of I Medical Doctor program: Requires the University of Iowa to have their Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Dentistry programs composed of 80% of students from Iowa or have gone to undergraduate school in Iowa. University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics are required to give priority in assigning residencies and fellowships to students from Iowa and who attended an Iowa school for their prior education. They shall also be provided the opportunity to participate in rotations in rural areas to expose them to the rural areas of the state. The goal of this bill is to ensure taxpayer-funded residency slots and loan repayment programs are benefiting Iowans first.
Birth centers: Repeals the Certificate of Need (CON) requirement for birth centers, thus removing the red tape currently hindering the establishment of birth centers, especially in the rural areas where they are needed.
Health insurance coverage for autism: Mandates health insurance coverage of treatment for autism spectrum disorder.
Pharmacy Benefit Managers reform (PBMs): This bill implements safeguards in the pharmaceutical market by prohibiting burdensome and unfair business practices by PBMs that hurt independent and rural pharmacies. This bill also implements payment models to address price disparities and to ensure sufficient payments to pharmacies. This is intended to protect patient access to drugs, pharmacists and pharmacies, especially in our rural areas.
Adoptive parent employees: Employers would be required to treat adoptive parents of a 0-6-year-old child and biological parents of a newborn the same in terms of policies, benefits and protections for the first year of the adoption.
Veteran Trust Fund update: The new target balance for the Veteran Trust Fund under this bill is $75 million. Currently it was $50 million and Iowa is on track to meet that goal in 2029, but since veteran needs have increased along with inflation, it is felt that the state needs to set a higher target amount for the Veteran Trust Fund in order to be able to continue to provide service to our veterans in need.
What we still have left to do: We will continue to balance the budget and to work on the multi-year effort on property tax reform. It was disappointing we couldn’t find agreement on a good bill on property tax reform this past session as the system is very complicated and many ideas were brought forward. We will continue to keep after it. Our goals are leaving more money in Iowans’ pockets, creating an economic environment favorable for growth, and making Iowa more economically competitive with other states. This is an ongoing effort.
Education
When I campaigned for office I said I would work for: better education and protection for students, protection for students from indoctrination, greater local control of schools by parents and families, and expanded educational choice
What we did:
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI): DEI promotes critical race theory (CRT) beliefs and LGBT ideology to students. DEI promotion has already been banned in K-12 schools and the three state universities. This session we applied the same DEI ban at community colleges and in state entities, which means a public school, city, county, state agency, board, commission, etc. They must not establish or maintain a DEI office and must not hire or assign an employee to perform the duties of a DEI office.
School of Intellectual Freedom: Establishes a school of intellectual freedom at the University of Iowa. The school is to conduct teaching and research and offer programming in the historical ideas, traditions and texts that have shaped the principles, ideals and institutions of the constitutional order in America. The school will be tasked to expand the intellectual diversity of the university’s academic community and foster civic engagement.
Governor’s math bill: Rewrites the state’s math standards to replace Common Core math. The goal is to improve math and problem-solving skills with early identification and intervention for students, additional training and professional development for teachers, and resources for families to help at home.
Civics test: Requires all high school students, as a condition of graduation, to pass (60%) the civics test developed by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, beginning in the 2026-2027 school year.
Child abuse at school: Moves investigation of child abuse occurring at school to the Iowa Dept. of Health and Human Services. Allows a third party (HHS) to conduct investigation of child abuse occurring at school, with the hope that more objectivity and transparency will be achieved.
School bullying: This bill changes the definition of bullying and harassment to be any repeated and targeted electronic, written, verbal or physical act or conduct toward a student that creates an objectively hostile school environment. It removes the requirement that the act be based on an actual or perceived trait or characteristic of the student and also removes the list in code of such traits and characteristics, such as race, sex, age, etc. Clarifies that all students should receive an equal level of protection no matter what their particular traits or characteristics are.
Raising education support pay: $14 million of one-time funding was appropriated for an increase in pay for education support personnel.
Governor cell phone bill: Each school must adopt policies regarding student use of personal electronic devices (cell phones) during school hours. The policies must restrict student use of such devices during classroom instructional time. Cell phones distract from instruction and have shown to be linked to mental health issues.
Private school students participation in student athletics: Requires public schools to allow students who reside in the school district or a contiguous district who enroll in a private school that does not provide extracurricular athletics to be able to participate in any extracurricular athletics offered by the public school.
Release time for religious education: Requires school districts to excuse students to attend released time religious education programs for at least one hour per week if requested by the parents. No school district funds can be used to support the released time program. Transportation to and from the place of instruction, including transportation for students with disabilities, is the complete responsibility of the sponsoring entity and parents.
What we still have left to do: We need to continue to monitor the changes made and being made in K-12 English literacy, math and social studies content standards to ensure that strong, effective, workable and age-appropriate standards are implemented in the future. They need to be free of left-leaning indoctrination and instead promote American heritage, legacy and citizenship. Better enforcement still needs to be implemented for those schools that persist in violating the prohibition on teaching and promoting CRT. We also need to monitor the Regent universities, community colleges and state entities following the bills regarding DEI. We need to allow and encourage school districts to engage the services of chaplains to help address student spiritual health and mental health which are linked together, just as the military, police and fire departments, and prisons, etc. do.
Part two of the 2025 legislative accomplishments will be in next week’s newsletter.
Feel free to contact me with ideas, thoughts and concerns. My phone is 319-987-3021, or you can email me at sandy.salmon@legis.iowa.gov. I want to hear what you are thinking and will listen to your input. Together we will work to make a difference for the future of Iowa. Thank you very much for the honor of representing you!
State Rep. Sandy Salmon is a Janesville Republican who represents House District 63, which includes all of Bremer County and the northern portion of Black Hawk County outside of Waterloo and Cedar Falls. She can be reached at 319-987-3021 or sandy.salmon@legis.iowa.gov.
