(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Lottery sales are off to a slow start in the new fiscal year after setting a sales record the previous year. Lottery C-E-O Matt Strawn gave the Lottery Commission an update during their meeting this (Tuesday) morning. “Gross lottery sales through the first two months of fiscal ’25 totaled 69-million-490-thousand and 821 dollars. This represents a 26-point-eight percent decrease from this same point last year,” Strawn says. He says lottery proceeds to the state through August are down around 48 percent from the same point last year.

Strawn had warned at the end of the last fiscal year that maintaining the record sales would be tough due to national economic conditions and soft sales in national lotto games. He cited Powerball sales as am example of how lotto games have impacted the new fiscal year. “So last year through August, Powerball sales in Iowa totaled 16-point-five million dollars. This year, over that same two-month time frame, Powerball sales in Iowa totaled five-point-nine million dollars,” Strawn says. “Thus, year-over-year Powerball sales in Iowa are down 64-point-oh-eight percent.”

Strawn says national Powerball sales trends are down a nearly identical amount. Strawn says jackpots are hard to predict and once they get going they bring in a lot of people who are not regular players. “And that’s even more so when those jackpots climb above the one BILLION-dollar threshold, which happened twice during the first two months of last fiscal year alone. Once in Powerball and once in Mega Millions,” he says. “And so not surprisingly as a result, Mega Millions performance to start the fiscal year is larger mirroring that of Powerball, as Mega Millions game sales are down 66-point-five-nine percent over the first two months.”

Strawn says the national economy has an impact on sales, and that includes changes in interest rates that impact the annuity or jackpot amount. “Simply stated, higher interest rates do lead to corresponding higher advertised grand prize amounts. And those higher advertised grand prize amounts lead to additional sales,” Strawn says. He says the issues they are facing were factored in as they prepared the budget for this fiscal year, and that has helped them stay close to their projections.

” Lottery sales for the first two months of fiscal 2025 are three-point-one million dollars ahead of budget projections. Lottery operating expenses are 247-thousand under budget. And when it comes to fiscal year-to-date proceeds, we are just less than one million behind our budget projections,” he says. Strawn says sales are unlikely to reach the record heights of recent years, but the adjustments they made in this year’s budget and continued diversity of products will help them deal with the drop.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is blasting the U.S. Postal Service over a whistleblower’s claims that a registered sex offender got a job as a letter carrier, even though he revealed his status on the application. Grassley says the postal service has refused his request for a list of letter carriers who are registered sex offenders, and he can’t say yet how many there are, or if any of them may be in Iowa.

“No, we haven’t got the list yet, and my speech yesterday made it clear how idiotic their reasoning is for not giving us a list,” Grassley says, “and maybe they will end up giving us a list.” Congress is entitled to the information, Grassley says, but postal officials won’t supply the employee list, saying: “They have a personal privacy interest in protecting the fact that their name appears on a sex offender registry.”

Grassley says, “They don’t have any reason to withhold the list, but we don’t have any of that information at this point.” He says the investigators on his staff asked the postal service for a list of all letter carriers on the payroll, to which the reply was: “Current employees’ names, titles and duty stations are generally considered to be public information and releasable,” but then refused to provide the information. Grassley says it’s infuriating and calls the situation “a disgrace.”

“Isn’t it odd that you make an application for a job and you say you’re on the registered sex offender list and you still get the job?” Grassley says. “We asked, are they delivering mail near schools, homes, places where young people are, and they don’t seem to have that concern.”

Grassley says the whistleblower told his office, once the Postal Service figured out what happened, the employee was placed on paid leave. He says, “our communities deserve much better.”

[Council Bluffs] Residents who were impacted by April storms and June flooding in Pottawattamie County now have access to a long-term disaster recovery center starting Monday, September 30, 2024. In partnership with Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management, the Pottawattamie County Emergency Operations Center will serve as a centralized location for disaster survivors in Pottawattamie County to access disaster case advocacy services, assistance with their federal assistance applications and process, and receive information and assistance with obtaining access to local and state assistance programs they may qualify for.

The Long-term Disaster Recovery Center (LT-DRC) will be staffed with local emergency management personnel, state disaster case advocates, and representatives from FEMAs Individual Assistance Program and the Small Business Administration. Doug Reed, Pott. County Emergency Management Director says “489 residents have registered for federal assistance in Pottawattamie County. Some are in the process, others that have been denied are encouraged to appeal, and many others may be eligible for additional state and local assistance programs. The activation of the LT-DRC will serve as an ongoing resource for those impacted by this year’s disasters and a place where they can find help navigating through the process.”

Pott. County EMA

The LT-DRC will open Monday, September 30, 2024, at the Pottawattamie County Emergency Operations Center at 205 S Main St, Council Bluffs, and will operate Monday through Friday from 9am – 5pm. The center will continue to operate until there is no further identifiable need for the resource. Any resident impacted by the disasters who need assistance navigating the recovery process, has a question about their FEMA or SBA status, needs assistance with their federal assistance  applications, needs to file an appeal on a denied federal application, or needs ongoing assistance with unmet needs is  encouraged to visit the LT-DRC during its hours of operations.

Alternate operating hours are being considered and planned to maximize opportunities for those who may need assistance from the center. Residents with ongoing or unmet needs can also get connected to assistance by completing the online Pottawattamie County Needs Assessment Survey.