(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Senate has passed a bill that would let the leaders of Iowa’s community colleges would meet every fall to decide how state funding will be distributed among the 15 institutions. Senator Tim Kraayenbrink, a Republican of Fort Dodge, says the presidents and chancellors asked to get rid of the distribution formula that’s set in state law. “A hundred percent of the presidents in our community agreed to this change,” Kraayenbrink said. “I think it’s 100% of anyone to agree on anything when it comes to funding for their institutions, so I thought that was fairly impressive.” Kraayenbrink says while the legislature this year approved a general level of funding that equals about 35-hundreds of dollars per student, the money is distributed differently due to the formula.

“That distribution between all of our community colleges come in somewhere between 75% of that $3500 and 170% of that $3500 for some of our schools,” Kraayenbrink says. Senator Claire Celsi, a Democrat from Des Moines, was the only senator to oppose the plan.  “This bill would essentially allow a backroom meeting for community colleges to decide their own funding,” Celsi says.

If the bill becomes law, at least 10 of the 15 community college chief executives would have to agree by October 31st on how state funding in the following academic year would be distributed. If the community college leaders can’t agree, officials in the Iowa Department of Educaion would make the decision. This plan will have to get House approve and be signed into law by the governor before it could take effect.

(Radio Iowa) – The numbers from February show a slight drop in the state’s unemployment rate. Iowa Workforce Development spokesman Jesse Dougherty. “The unemployment rate reached two-point-nine percent (2.9%). So that’s an improvement from the three percent (3%) we saw in the first month of the year,” he says. “And with that, there were fewer Iowans who reported that they were unemployed.  The number of people in the labor force did drop around 39-hundred for February. “In looking at the data, that the vast majority of those who did leave were 16 to 24. And the majority of reason they left was for school or taking classes,” Dougherty says. “And that’s a trend that tends to trickle in, in January and February. ”

He says employers reported 11-thousand new jobs in February.  “There were several main areas accommodation and food services, that’s eating and drinking establishments, led the way with 44-hundred. We saw both education and health care add jobs, just over a thousand jobs each. We also saw construction at 11-hundred jobs as constructions going really strong, as well as a couple of other areas,” Dougherty says.

There have been some recent layoffs announced, including around 13-hundred workers at the Tyson plant in Perry. Dougherty says the impact of the Perry layoffs won’t be know for awhile as they are set for June. He says the Perry layoffs and others are a concern, but he says they are not believe to be a negative overall indicator. “You know, from what we understand right now, we think those are more about specific challenges facing certain industries, and not a widespread economic issue across Iowa,” He says. “You know it’s evidence in last month’s report, and we also saw, if you look at prior to January, which had a drop in retail coming out of the holiday, we also had beyond that there was several months of job growth overall. So we think based on that trend, you know, we’re not seeing any major issues of concern for those employers and those industries.”

The U-S unemployment rate increased to three-point-nine percent (3.9%) in February.

(Guthrie Center, Iowa) – The Guthrie Center School District’s Board of Education met Wednesday night and held a public hearing on the 2024-25 District Master Calendar. Superintendent Josh Rasmussen said there were no comments received.

In addition to approving the calendars as presented, the Board approved the resignations of Zach Brandt – HS Teacher and Coach (effective at the end of the current school year), and Brandy Clark – Special Education Para educator. They also approved some contract recommendations.

The Board discussed replacing Weight Room Equipment and how it is purchased.

In other business, the Board set April 17th and 7-p.m., as the date and time for a public hearing on the 2024-25 Certified Budget. They also approved the purchase of a Digital signs to replace older signs that aren’t easily fixable.

In the final order of business, the Guthrie Center Board approved the purchase of a new 77-passenger school bus from Bluebird, in the amount of $129,971.

DES MOINES, Iowa (Gray Television Iowa Capitol Bureau) – After January’s shooting, the Perry Community School District reached out to other schools that dealt with similar tragedies. They found many staff members often decide to leave. A bill passed by the Iowa House would allow the Perry Community School District to give teachers a bonus to come back next year. The bill also waives certain state requirements for the district like some standardized testing, graduation, and hours of instruction.

The bill passed the House in a 94 to 1 vote. Over in the Senate, it passed out of the Ways and Means Committee Wednesday afternoon. It can now be brought up on the Senate floor for a vote.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is looking into the death of an inmate in the Johnson County Jail after an apparent medical emergency last week. According to a release from Johnson County Sheriff Brad Kunkel, 36-year-old Nathaniel Davis Jr. was booked into the jail on March 10 to serve a seven-day sentence. On March 14 at approximately 6:10 p.m., Davis had an apparent medical emergency, and a deputy watching a camera monitor saw Davis fall over in his cell. When jail staff responded to Davis’ cell and determined he was having a medical emergency, they began CPR and applied an automatic external defibrillator. An ambulance was also called at this time.

Davis was transported to University of Iowa Hospital, where he died on March 19. According to Kunkel’s release, his office has requested the DCI investigate the incident. An autopsy will be conducted by the Johnson County Medical Examiner’s Office and the State Jail Inspector has been notified.