Hite Capitol Update – March 20, 2021
by Dustin Hite
Week 10 of the legislative session was another busy week of floor debate in the House. Among the bills considered, I floor managed House File 744 which passed the House with strong bipartisan support. HF 744 protects students and teachers’ First Amendment rights, encourages universities to have open discourse on different viewpoints, and ensures all teachers and professors are educated and trained on protecting the First Amendment. It’s not the job of our colleges and universities job to tell students what to think, it’s to give them the tools to decide what to think. I had the opportunity this week to join the House Republican’s Inside the Chamber podcast to discuss this bill in more detail.
As well this week, the Des Moines Register published an article on the bill I authored addressing the federal program of redlining that passed the House unanimously last week, HF 626. The article discusses the bill in detail and gets opinions from others involved in housing decisions and programs. You can read the Register’s write up here.
On March 11, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 into law. This bill provides just over $170.3 billion to education alone. The funds are to be used for short term needs that are associated with COVID-19, as well as investing in long term projects. Of the $170.3 billion for education, about $125.4 billion for state K-12 public education and $39.6 billion in higher education, with remaining funds going to other educational programs.
Additionally, the Act provides $7.2 billion in funding for the federal E-Rate program which will provide devices and connectivity to students, educators, and patrons of public libraries. For private schools, governors will receive $2.75 billion in funding to assist private schools that have a high percentage of low-income students and most impacted by COVID-19. Of the $125.4 billion for K12 public schools, $122.8 billion will be put into the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) which is distributed to states based on their Title I, Part A funding, which is the same as the previous round of education funding.
What does this mean for Iowa? Iowa will receive a total of $774,516,000 for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funding. That breaks down to $1,513.17 per pupil. LEA for learning recovery is slated to get $135,540,300. See below a further breakdown of where funding is going.
It was great to meet with the Vos family and Bailey family of Pella this week at the Capitol, who were visiting as part of the Homeschool Iowa Capitol Day. I also had the chance to meet with Daryl Bouwkamp of Pella, who’s son Ben in clerking for Representative Jarad Klein this session. Please feel free to reach out to me at dustin.hite@legis.iowa.gov if you would like to schedule a visit, or if you have any questions, comments or concerns.
