(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds chose Black Hawk State Park in Lake View as the backdrop for a bill-signing ceremony to approve a budget that expands spending on the state park system by two-million dollars. The plan also includes about 42 million dollars for a variety of water quality initiatives. Reynolds notes the first bill she signed into law as governor back in 2018 set the framework for using a variety of funding sources to finance projects to clean-up Iowa lakes and waterways. “We’re still not where we need to be,” Reynolds says, “so we’ll continue to look for opportunities to expand it.”

Early last year, Reynolds proposed a plan to raise the state sales tax — use part of the extra tax revenue to finance water quality projects and the rest to offset deeper income tax cuts. Reynolds called it her “Invest in Iowa” plan, but she quickly tabled it when the pandemic hit and created economic uncertainty.