(Des Moines) Iowa House District 21 Republican Representative Tom Moore joined Governor Reynolds today other legislators in signing the School’s State Supplemental Aid Bill for the 2020-2021 school year.
Representative Moore says the bill calls for an additional $99.2 million to the State’s education budget. “This increase will address important issues such as transportation inequity for rural schools and reduce the per-pupil cost,” stated Moore.
The breakdown is as follows; Supplemental State Aid $85.57 million, Rural Transportation $7.65 million, and Per Pupil Equity $5.8 million.
Moore says Iowa faces a workforce shortage and over the last several sessions legislators have worked in a bipartisan way to pass the Future Ready Iowa Act and Last Dollar Scholarship program to help Iowans access career training programs and advance in their careers. The next step to ease Iowa’s worker shortage is addressing the issue of child care.
House Republicans have introduced a robust package of legislation this session to improve child care for Iowa families. He says several committees have advanced common-sense solutions to make child care more affordable for families, increase access to providers, incentivize businesses to offer and expand child care to their employees, and address the “cliff effect” by easing Iowans off of government child care assistance programs. These bills not only offer public sector solutions, but they also engage the business community and create public-private-partnerships to help solve this challenge.
