The Dickey Dispatch – February 11th, 2022

by Senator Adrian Dickey

It’s Super Bowl week and the opening week of the XXIV Winter Olympics! That means mom is watching figure skating 24/7 and dad is in his wood shop. This week has been so busy, I have not enjoyed the festivities of either event. Hopefully this weekend will allow for some time to catch up and watch the game.

The Senate continues working on many issues with a full slate of subcommittee and committee work. A subcommittee met on Tuesday to discuss a bill related to the amount of land owned by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Senate File 2152 would require the DNR to maintain an inventory on their website and update it within 30 days of acquiring new property. This bill is a way to increase government transparency and monitor the amount of land the government owns.

The ability for the DNR to acquire land in ways our citizens cannot is a concern of mine. In fact. While one of the main reasons they are able to do this, is to provide the public more places to hunt, they have an unfair advantage when bidding against everyone else.

This week I introduced a bill, SF 2215, that would allow a landowner to voluntary enroll some or all of their land into a program that would allow the public to hunt on it. In exchange, the state would provide the landowner a property tax credit in the amount of $8/acre for every acre enrolled. This accomplishes 3 key things. First, it gives a landowner some property tax relief. Second, it provides more locations for the public to hunt and enjoy nature, and third, the funding of this program would come out of the pool of money that the DNR currently uses to purchase land. This way, the DNR “land grab” would be slowed down and many more acres of timber and pasture ground would be accessible for the public to use ($8/ acre vs. $4,000/ acre). The bill was just released Thursday, so I am interested to see where it goes.

In last week’s newsletter, I indicated that I would be releasing my “Iowa Re-Employment to Prosperity” bill this week. This bill has been a compilation of 8 months of research, discussing concerns with the IWD (Iowa Workforce and Development), visiting with Iowa’s workers, and having countless meetings with Iowa employers.

My bill, SF 2249, is a more modern way to look at how we administer re-employment benefits. Our current unemployment benefit system has been in place for nearly 40 years and in that time has remained essentially untouched. SF 2249 modernizes our 40-year-old unemployment system to a modern day, re-employment structure that moves with the actual economic conditions and with the actual job market conditions that our state is facing.

Currently, our state provides 26 weeks, that is six months, of unemployment benefits with very few requirements imposed. In my bill, if unemployment levels go up or down, the number of weeks of re-employment benefits will move as well between 12-16 weeks (with a trigger that would allow the governor to extend that up to 24 weeks in a rare economic disaster). If the number of jobs available go up or down (currently there are over 85,000 jobs listed available in Iowa), the number of required verifiable job searches flows between 4-6 (what we have had in place is just 2 job searches that are not verified). To have a system that adjusts with the actual economy only makes sense in today’s modern workforce environment.

Also in my re-employment bill, claimants are required to do one job skill activity each week that will help the applicant find a great job. These skills can help the claimant interview better, to learn about other job opportunities, etc. My proposed bill also requires the IWD to provide the claimant a list of jobs available every week in a 50 mile radius of the claimant’s residence in areas that the claimant has worked in the past 10 years or has recently shown an interest in.

Another bill that I introduced this week dealt with RAGBRAI. Having been a RAGBRAI participant for many years, I understand what a gem this is to our state. It is amazing from a tourism standpoint, and there is no better way for us to display “Iowa Nice” to 30,000 travelers from all around the world. Story after story have been shared of people moving to Iowa after experiencing how wonderful our state is during this fun filled week.

Unfortunately, a trend has been growing where local businesses and nonprofit groups (church ladies pie sale, the local fire department pancake breakfast, VFW watermelon feed) have been forced to stop sales at certain times in the day. Stopping the sale of food and water when you are biking 90 miles on a 102 degree day makes no sense to me. Then for a non-local group to come in and rudely force these riders out of the towns is certainly not the best way to display “Iowa Nice.” However, the most concerning part of what has been taking place over the years is that this is an infringement of an individuals and a private businesses civil liberties.

The subcommittee meeting of this bill had over 40 people in attendance, 30 more attending online, and 40 more individuals reached out to me that they attempted participate but the online platform was overwhelmed and would not let them in. Obviously, the bill got some attention, and I am hopeful that a safe, enjoyable, and legal solution is found without having to continue with my pending legislation.