Update From the House for District 80

Holly Brink (District 80) signs her Oath of Office on Monday, January 14, 2019.

Getting Down to Business
1/25/2019

Hello Friends,

With the start of the second week, we at the Capitol have been gearing up for both the work and weather ahead of us this session. Transitioning from the ceremony from last week, we have begun tackling the issues and defining our goals for the session.

Early this week, I had the opportunity to meet with Ben Hammes from the Master Builders of Iowa group to discuss an extension to the Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE) funding. SAVE funding is utilized by schools to improve their infrastructure and faculties to continue to provide an quality environment for Iowa’s youth. Funding from this program comes from state sales and use taxes. Currently, Representative Dolecheck has been leading this bill through the Education committee. While I appreciate meeting with Mr. Hammes, I have continued discussions with several schools in district 80 to learn how they have used SAVE funding. I will be continuing discussions with our local school districts to see where SAVE can be best put to use for our children’s educational experience.

At the Human Resources committee meeting, we were given a presentation about recent improvements to Iowa’s Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) and its utility in reducing abuse of prescription medications such as opioids. The PMP, administered by the Iowa Board of Pharmacy, is an electronic database that holds records prescriptions of patients to keep track of controlled substances used for treatments. Since the program has gone into effect, we have seen a decrease in the dispersion of controlled substance prescriptions as more and more health professionals ranging from physicians to dentists have been adding their records to the database. We are confident in this tool to continue to provide a worthwhile service in maintaining the health of our fellow Iowans by its work in combatting substance abuse.

As for my Education, Economic Development, Labor, and Appropriations committees, the focus of our work has been the review of the Governor’s budgetary plan for the 2020 fiscal year and focusing our goals for the session. With the session still young and bills still being assigned, we are looking ahead in each committee, discussing what our common mission is and what we aim to accomplish. For now, I have been attending the subcommittees on particular house files of interest and key budget subcommittees to prepare for what policies we have in store in the following weeks.

Thank you for your continued support. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Holly Brink
State Representative, Iowa District 80
(641)295-7111
Holly.brink@legis.iowa.gov