(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – Two of Iowa’s state universities will not request any additional general education dollars for the next fiscal year, according to Iowa Board of Regents documentation. The University of Northern Iowa will request incremental general university funding of $2.5 million for fiscal year 2026, according to the state appropriations request the board of regents is set to discuss next week. The University of Iowa and Iowa State University will keep their general appropriations requests flat compared to their appropriation in fiscal year 2025. If approved by the regents, the UI will request about $223.5 million, ISU will request nearly $178.5 million and UNI will request about $104.4 million in general university appropriations, bringing the total to $506.3 million.

General education appropriations increased by 2.5% at each university for fiscal year 2025, coming out to $12.3 million compared to the $14.8 million requested. UNI would use these additional dollars to “support efforts to differentiate UNI tuition from that of research intensive universities,” the document stated. “State’s investment is critical to keeping a four-year degree within reach for Iowans,” the document stated.

Tying their requests together under the motto of “service to Iowans,” each of the universities are also seeking state appropriations to launch or expand special programs, from rural health care and economics initiatives to partnerships with community colleges.

The UI is requesting $10 million in fiscal year 2026, with more funding requests planned in future years for a total of $50 million, for its rural health care initiative. The university is also seeking economic development appropriations from the state for its John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center and nurse innovator program. With the remaining $50,000 split between the center’s venture school training program and Hawkeye Ventures Fund, $25,000 will go to expanding the school to two new locations and the rest will be put toward supporting a financial analyst, student interns and marketing efforts for the ventures fund.

ISU is seeking increased funding for its agricultural experiment station and its extension and outreach service with the goal of strengthening Iowa’s rural economy, according to the board of regents document. If approved, the university will request $3.75 million in incremental funding for the experiment station and an additional $1 million for the outreach service. The funds would support technological advances, workforce and entrepreneurship and economics and policy in the agriculture sector, according to the document. The university is also requesting $1 million in funding to create scholarships for its veterinary early acceptance program and $4 million to establish a manufacturing pipeline. The scholarships would provide in-state tuition for students entering the College of Veterinary Medicine through the ISU Production Animal – Veterinary Early Acceptance Program with the requirement of them working in rural Iowa after graduation for at least five years.

ISU is also asking for a $36,005 increase in economic development funding for its Biobased Products, Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics, and Digital and Precision Agriculture bioscience platforms in order to have them funded at $3 million annually, a goal set in 2017. The university is also requesting economic development state appropriations of $250,000 to support staff and operations focused on entrepreneurship, according to the document. The only university to request increases in agricultural and natural resources appropriations, ISU is asking for an additional $1.5 million for its veterinary diagnostics lab and $250,000 more for livestock disease research.

With federal funding predicted to run out by the end of 2025 due to growth and need, UNI is seeking $1.63 million in state appropriations for its UNI@IACC program, which opens students who have received an associate’s degree from a partner community college to earn their bachelor’s degree from UNI remotely. UNI is also looking to establish a center for civic education, and is requesting $1 million for its launch. The university is also requesting $3 million in economic development dollars to offer students from states that share a border with Iowa the same tuition and fees as in-state students, as, according to the document, 40% of UNI graduates from border states stay in Iowa.

(Radio Iowa) – One week from this Patriot Day, dozens of Iowa veterans will be taken on the latest chartered Honor Flight to see the various memorials in Washington D-C. Russ Naden of Webster City is one of the organizers of the Brushy Creek Honor Flight, scheduled for next Wednesday, flying out of the Fort Dodge airport. “There’s around 125, maybe 130 veterans altogether,” Naden says. “I think there’s four or five Korean vets and a few that were in between wars, but primarily Vietnam vets.” Naden says they’ll make a trip to Arlington National Cemetery where the Iowa veterans will be taking part in a special event.

“We’ve been approved as a group to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” Naden says. “It’s something we wanted to do, and you’ve got to get permission like a year ahead of time.” This will be the 26th Honor Flight from Fort Dodge. The flights have carried more than 35-hundred veterans to see the sights in the nation’s capitol.

Naden says the next flight is scheduled for May of 2025 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa D-O-T is putting the finishing touches on a change in the way road use tax funds are distributed to counties. The D-O-T’s Stuart Anderson says the change was necessitated by the legislature. “The legislature eliminated the Secondary Road Fund Distribution Committee from the Iowa code and empowered the Transportation Commission to determine the formulas for secondary road fund and Farm to Market Road Fund distribution amongst the counties,” Anderson says. Anderson says the Transportation Commission will still get county input.

“We feel like having the Secondary Road Fund Distribution Committee continue as an ad-hoc committee to the commission is vitally important to have that county engineer and county supervisor representation provide that important feedback,” he says. The former committee had members who were county supervisors and county engineers, and they made the rules for distributing the secondary road fund and the farm-to-market road funds in the state’s 99 counties. He says keeping the committee in a new capacity gives them a link to the counties when making decisions.

“And really retains the process that they put in place many years ago for how future changes to the methodology became can be considered, and then also defines what the existing methodology is as it moving forward as it exists today, for how those two funds are distributed,” Anderson says.

The Transportation Commission approved the rules for distributing the county funds at its meeting Tuesday.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Sheriff’s officials in Montgomery County report the arrest at around 10:30-p.m. Tuesday, of 45-year-old Crystal Marie Mack, from Red Oak. She was taken into custody in the 1400 block of N. 7th Street in Red Oak, on an active warrant out of Clarke County, for Violation of Probation. Mack was being held without bond, in the Montgomery County Jail.

RAYMOND, Iowa (KCRG) – The Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office says a juvenile is dead and five more people are injured after a crash east of Raymond Tuesday night. According to a press release, sheriff’s deputies were called to the intersection of Dubuque Road and South Canfield Road for a report of a two vehicle crash at 9:45 p.m.

At the scene, investigators determined a Nissan Pathfinder SUV had been traveling south on South Canfield and ran a stop sign at Dubuque Road before colliding with a Buick Rendezvous SUV in the intersection. A juvenile in the Nissan was killed in the crash. Four other juveniles in the Nissan were all assessed or transported to the hospital for injuries. All four are expected to survive.

An adult woman in the Buick was airlifted to University of Iowa Health Care in Iowa City for what the sheriff’s office describes as a “possible serious injury.”

The crash is under investigation by the Black Hawk County Sherriff’s Office.

GRIMES, Iowa – Sept. 6, 2024 – Nighttime construction work on the pavement of westbound Interstate 80 will require closing the road to traffic beginning at 10 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 16 until 5 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17, and from 10 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17 until 5 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, weather permitting, according to the Iowa Department of Transportation’s Grimes Construction office.

On Wednesday, Sept.18, traffic will use the new ramp from westbound I-80 to northbound I-35.

While the road is closed you will follow a marked detour route using the U.S. 65 bypass, Hubbell Avenue, Euclid Avenue, and I-235 (see map).

The Iowa DOT reminds motorists to drive with caution, obey the posted speed limit and other signs in the work area, and be aware that traffic fines for moving violations are at least double in work zones. As in all work zones, drivers should stay alert, allow ample space between vehicles, and wear seat belts.

(Radio Ipwa) – The Iowa Supreme Court is expected to rule today (Wednesday) on an appeal from Libertarian congressional candidates seeking to have their names printed on General Election ballots. Two weeks ago, the State Objection Panel kicked Libertarians running in the first, third and fourth congressional districts off the ballot after Republicans pointed out the Libertarian Party failed to follow state law and held its caucuses and county conventions on the same day.

Yesterday (Tuesday), during a hearing in Des Moines, the justices on the Iowa Supreme Court asked pointed questions of attorneys for both sides in the case. Chief Justice Susan Christensen called it a “kind of ticky tack” violation, but she asked an attorney for the Libertarians why the law shouldn’t be enforced.  “I don’t think it’s as obtrusive to require strict compliance before an election,” she said. “Get your ducks in a row.” Justice Dana Oxley asked a follow up.

“If everyone in the party agrees that, ‘We’re just going to ignore all the rules in the statute,’ then no one can challenge that?” she asked. Justice Christopher McDonald outlined his biggest concern with the Libertarians’ position.  “You could have under your argument, I think, complete non-compliance,” McDonald said. “I mean if the party didn’t have a precinct caucus or a county convention and they didn’t have delegates and they didn’t file any paperwork with the county auditors and they just said they had a state convention — maybe they did, maybe they didn’t…that would be OK.”

Later, as other attorneys were arguing the Libertarians didn’t qualify for the ballot, Justice McDonald noted the issue wouldn’t be before the court if Libertarians had waited 181 minutes and started their county conventions after midnight. “Why should we care if there’s no contest as to who the actual delegates are and there’s no contest that they would have had legal authority…to vote…if they had waited a sufficient amount of time?” McDonald said. “It seems like the case law is pretty clear that we’re not going to allow these kind of collateral challenges.”

Justice Oxley asked a similar question of an attorney asking the court to uphold the decision to keep the Libertarians’ names off the ballot. “Why is the remedy for the fact that they held the county convention three hours early nullification of everything that happened?” Oxley asked. At the end of the hearing, Justice Edward Mansfield said the Republicans who objected to having Libertarians run in three Iowa congressional districts did so for a reason. “They view having the candidacies on the ballot as an injury to the candidates they’ve nominated,” Waterman said.

The Libertarian candidates say they will run write-in campaigns if their names are not printed on ballots in the first, third and fourth congressional districts.

HARDIN COUNTY, Iowa — Authorities have identified the two people killed in a head-on collision in northern Iowa.

According to an Iowa State Patrol crash report, a Ford Edge driven by 31-year-old Tevin Williams, of Paris, Texas, was traveling northbound on a Hardin County road Monday afternoon when it collided head-on with a southbound Isuzu NQR truck driven by 74-year-old Steven Kramer, of Waterloo. The drivers of both vehicles were pronounced dead.

According to the ISP, Williams was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash. The crash remains under investigation.

According to the latest data from the Iowa Department of Transportation, 221 people have died so far this year on Iowa roads. That number is 42 fewer than at the same point in 2023. Over the last five years, an average of 350 people have been killed in statewide crashes annually.