(Anita, Iowa) – The CAM School Board, Monday night, acted on approving various Board Policies to come before them for review, along with an AEA Purchasing Agreement for 2024-25, with regard to the Nutrition Program. Superintendent Paul Croghan said they also approved a mowing bid from A & B Construction.

Afterward, they held more discussion with regard to CAM School District facilities.

The CAM School District has gone from three buildings to two and is waiting for a final decision to go to one facility for all grades.

Croghan brought-up the topic of the FY25 School Calendar, but much of the information they need to come up with a plan is dependent on the Iowa Legislature, otherwise it’s in limbo.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – John Deere says it will lay off almost 150 production workers in Ankeny in the coming months. On Friday, 150 production employees were placed on ‘indefinite layoff.’ This will take place through April and May.

Around 17-hundred total employees work at the Ankeny site. Most of them perform maintenance or production jobs.

(Atlantic) The Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce has announced the featured band for ® RAGBRAI event in July. Pork Tornadoes are an Iowa-based band that’s been called the number one party band in Iowa, and a RAGBRAI favorite. Pork Tornadoes will take to the stage from 9-until 11-p.m. during RAGBRAI’s overnight stay in town on July 22nd.

Pork Tornadoes (from their Facebook page)

In addition, there will be live music the entire day. In the coming weeks, the Atlantic RAGBRAI committee will announce a new band each day on the RAGBRAI Atlantic Facebook page.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Montgomery County Auditor Jill Ozuna reminds resident/business property owners that a recent law change (HF-718) requires county auditors to mail a statement to county taxpayers by March 20 with state-specified information related to proposed local government budgets and proposed property tax rates. (Iowa Code 24.2A) The information is for taxes payable in September 2024 and March 2025.

Ozuna says you should receive a statement if you expect to receive a property tax bill in September. The statement is not a property tax bill. It includes data for proposed city, school district and county budgets but does not include proposed budgets for smaller taxing authorities, such as the community college, assessor’s office, townships, and agricultural extension service.
The budget statement will include information regarding school, county, and city proposed tax rates as well as information about scheduled public hearings regarding the proposed tax rates.

The budget statement will include the following information:
• Date, time, and location of public hearings to consider proposed property tax rates for next fiscal year
• Phone number and website (if applicable) for each associated taxing authority
• Current, effective, and proposed tax rate information
• Comparison of current, effective, and proposed tax rates
• How current taxes levied by the school, county and city are distributed
• Comparison of how taxes would be distributed in the current and proposed budget years

Montgomery County Courthouse (Iowa)

Additional information regarding the budget statement will be made available online at https://dom.iowa.gov/property-taxes on or after March 20, 2024.

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports a man from Nebraska was arrested this (Tuesday) morning, on a drug charge. 30-year-old Cole Ryan Fitzgerald, of Omaha, was arrested in the area of 221st St./Kesterson Road at around 2:19-a.m. He was charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance. Bond was set at $1,000.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Workforce Development is sending its new mobile Iowa Works center to Perry after the announcement that Tyson plans to shut down the pork plant there. Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend recently talked about the setup of the mobile center. “We can do almost all of the services that we provide at the American Job Center in our mobile unit, and it can go anywhere, you know, river to river, border to border,” Townsend says. She says it allows them to make a quick response if there is an unexpected mass layoff, and they can set up in that community and be there as long as needed. Townsend says they can respond to other events as well.

“If we, God forbid, have natural disaster, we can show up and have a place to operate from, it does have a generator, so we don’t have to plug into an electrical outlet to operate,” she says.
Townsend says it doesn’t have to it doesn’t just go to a community for emergencies. “If you’ve got a career fair or you’re an employer that needs to do a lot of hiring all at once you can sign up and we can come out and feel close to career fair right there at the mobile center,” she says.

Townsend encourages anyone who is interested to learn more about the mobile center on the Iowa Work Works website.

(Radio Iowa) – A bill that would let state agencies hire private certified public accountants rather than have the state auditor’s office review spending is in limbo in the Iowa House. Senate Republicans approved the bill in February, the first bill to pass the Senate this year. This morning, Republicans on a House subcommittee decided to let the House State Government Committee chair decide the bill’s fate. Republican Representative Michael Bergan of Dorchester, an accountant, is not recommending the committee pass the bill. “There might be some additional costs and added inefficiencies, too,” Bergan, the subcommittee chairman, said after the hearing.

According to the Legislative Services Agency, it could cost up to three times as much to have private CPA firms rather than State Auditor’s Office staff conduct the annual audits, plus Bergan said private CPA audits of state agencies could make it difficult for the state auditor to compile a required annual report on how the state spends federal funds. Brad Epperly, a lobbyist for the Iowa Society of CPAs, said the group is neutral on the bill and he suggested if the bill goes into effect, state agencies would have to hire out-of-state CPA firms to do the work. “As of right now, I don’t know that we have any members that would have the ability to do the audits,” Epperly said.

State Auditor Rob Sand, the only Democrat elected to statewide office, has said letting state agencies pick who audits the books could conceal corruption. Representative Adam Zabner of Iowa City, a Democrat from Iowa City, voted no on the bill in subcommittee. “Auditor Sand does a nice job. To be honest, it really doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the voters think and they reelected him to come back and be in charge of audits for the State of Iowa,” Zabner said. “I don’t like the idea that the legislature can circumvent that.”

There were a handful of speakers at today’s House subcommittee hearing on the bill and no one spoke in favor of it.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – “Iowa in the Jazz age” is the topic of a presentation 2-p.m. this Sunday, March 17th, in Atlantic. The program is sponsored by ARISE (Atlantic Rock Island Society Enterprise). Lively music, “flappers ‘” dresses and Iowa bootleggers may come to mind representing the 1920’s. There was much more happening. Prohibition, beginning of the depression and the end of prosperity. See the bigger picture this Sunday, at the American Legion Memorial Building (The Armory) in Atlantic.

Leo Landis examines life in the 1920s and early 1930s and the various conflicts concerning music, dancing, immigration, evolutions and race. These cultural clashes formed the basis for longstanding trends in America. Landis is the Curator for the State Historical Society and Iowa Museum. The museum houses more than 80,000 artifacts, of which about 1,500 objects are on display at any given time. More objects from the collection are on display in the State Capitol and on loan to other museums in Iowa.

There is no fee to attend the presentation, but donations are appreciated. The American Legion Memorial Building is located at 201 Poplar Street in Atlantic and is handicapped accessible. For more information contact LaVon Eblen, 712-254-2254.

(Radio Iowa) – Several elected officials from Iowa communities are in Washington D-C this week to attend the non-partisan National League of Cities Congressional City Conference. Dubuque Mayor Brad Cavanagh is among them and he says it’s an excellent opportunity to network with other civic leaders, and also with those at the federal level. “In Dubuque, we have a lot of things going on, particularly around infrastructure, and making sure that we’re creating and investing in a city that is going to last for generations,” Cavanagh says. “So we have really important meetings that we’ve had with lots of different federal departments, from the White House on down, meetings with the Department of Interior, USDA, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency.”

Organizers say the conference is being attended by more than 28-hundred city leaders from across the country who are discussing some of the most pressing issues facing cities today. Those include infrastructure, transportation, public safety, clean energy and digital equity. Being in the nation’s capitol, the mayor says he’s cementing good partnerships with key federal officials. “We have access to a lot of resources to be able to get some of these major projects done,” Cavanagh says, “so talking to these departments and having direct relationships with them in this way is really how we make sure we have good access to those resources, and we can apply for the grants we need to, and really be able to have these things moving forward.”

Cavanagh says many elements of federal legislation that are being approved have been “transformative.” “Generationally, for cities and towns, and I think in Iowa, there’s absolutely no exception to that,” Cavanagh says. “We are seeing a lot of things happen from an infrastructure standpoint. In the Inflation Reduction Act, we have a lot of access to things that surround the sustainability efforts that are really important to us in Dubuque, and I think are important across Iowa.”

Other Iowans who are listed as attending the conference include: Ames city council members Gloria Betcher and Anita Rollins, Cedar Rapids city council member Ashley Vanorny, Dubuque city council member Susan Farber, and Alan Kemp, the executive director of the Iowa League of Cities. The conference opened Monday and will conclude on Wednesday.