DES MOINES, IOWA — Representative Tom Moore announced his intention to seek reelection to the District 21 seat in the Iowa House of Representatives. District 21 is comprised of Adams and Union counties, and parts of Pottawattamie and Cass counties.

Moore was originally elected to the House in December 2015 in a special election to replace the late Rep. Jack Drake. Before serving in the House, Moore dedicated much of his life to working with Iowa’s youth. For 33 years he taught physical education, American history, world history, reading, and health to 6th – 12th grade students in the Grinnell and Griswold school districts. Moore also coached football, wrestling, and golf during those years. Following his retirement from education he served on the Griswold Board of Education from 2009 through 2015.

Rep. Tom Moore (right)

Moore continues his service to Iowa students in the House where he serves on the Education Committee and is Vice Chair of the Education Appropriations Subcommittee. Moore also serves on the Environmental Protection, Human Resources, and State Government Committees. His first vote in the House was to raise education funding by two percent for fiscal year 2016.

From 2007 to 2015 Moore worked as the Assistant Manager at Southwest Iowa Egg, where he gained insight into what it takes to successfully run an animal agriculture organization and a business in general. His second vote in the House was in support of coupling Iowa’s tax code with the federal code and save farmers and business owners thousands of dollars under Section 179, which allows for accelerated depreciation of new business assets up to $500,000.

Moore has been married to his wife Jewell Moore for 31 years. They have three children.

A bill that would make it easier for as many as 80 deceased veterans to reach their final resting place will be debated today (Tuesday) in an Iowa Senate committee. Michael Triplett, a lobbyist for the Iowa Funeral Directors Association, explains the problem.  “Sometimes when people are cremated there are occasions where the family just doesn’t come and claim the remains and they stay on our shelves for quite a while,” Triplett says.

Other states have passed laws that allow a veterans’ organization to claim the cremated remains of confirmed veterans who were homeless or indigent when they died, so those veterans may be burial with full military honors. “What we need to do, though, in order to make that work in the state of Iowa is to set up a framework where everyone’s rights are protected, including those who may want to claim the remains, but who haven’t gotten around to it, or haven’t been notified,” Triplett says.

The bill would allow Iowa funeral directors with unclaimed cremated remains to contact the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs six months after they’ve filed the death certificate, to find out if the deceased was a veteran. If he or she was a veteran, the funeral director will keep the cremated remains for another six months. “If after those two sets of 180 days no one has claimed the remains and they are an eligible veteran, a veterans organization can come and pick up the remains and they can give the person a proper military send-off in their Iowa Veterans Cemetery,” Triplett says.

Under current law, Iowa funeral directors are not allowed to release cremated remains to anyone but a family member. Triplett says as many as 80 veterans might be buried at the Iowa Veterans Cemetery in Van Meter if the bill becomes law.

The “Missing in America” project was launched in 2007 to seek out the “tens of thousands” of indigent veterans who have died, but who remain shelved in funeral homes around the country. The bill to address the problem in Iowa has passed the Iowa House and will be considered in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee later today (Tuesday).

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Department of Education says there’s now just one school which hasn’t qualified for the program that pays extra money to teachers who take over a mentoring role for their less experienced co-workers. Department of Education Director Ryan Wise says 38 new districts have now qualified for the Teacher Leadership and Compensation System.

“This will be the third and final wave of schools that will come in, and they’ll. begin implementing their plan in the fall of this year,” Wise says. So, 332 of the 333 districts have plans in place, with Riceville still working on getting approval to become the final school district to pass the test. The plan was to have one third of the students be in districts that received TLC approval each year for three years until it was fully implemented. A commission reviews each district’s plan before giving approval.

“We’ve seen the commission take a really close look at budgets in particular. So, really ensuring that districts have a clear vision for what they want to accomplish through T-L-C,” according to Wise. “They have clear roles for their teach leaders to take on, and goals that they want to accomplish, and then that they plan to spend their money in ways that are tied to those roles, goals and their overarching vision.” The Iowa Legislature has allocated 50 million dollars for each of the three years of implementation of the program.

“So after this year, that 150 million dollars will have rolled into the funding formula for all districts as a categorical funding stream,” Wise explains.”Which means they need to use that funding in their funding formula for the purposes of . And then because it is a categorical, it would be subject an annual increase…which would be set annually by the legislature.” Wise says the Department of Education checks up to see that the districts have worked to reach the goals set out in their plans.

“Of the first 39 districts, those districts mostly or fully met about three quarters of the goals they set out. So, we are very encouraged by the initial results from a district prospective of what they hoped TLC would accomplish,” Wise says. Along with the vision and goals districts must set their plans, they must also set a minimum teacher salary of 33-thousand-500 for teachers.

Among the latest districts approved is: Clarinda, Creston (with Prescott), Diagonal, East Mills (with Essex), Fremont-Mills, Hamburg, Harlan, Orient-Macksburg, and Stanton.

(Radio Iowa)

The Union County Sheriff’s Office says a 73-year old woman from Creston was arrested Monday evening at her home, on a Union County warrant for Theft in the 3rd degree.  Frances Sharon Standley was later released from the Union County Jail on $2000 bond.

The Cass County Board of Supervisors will meet Wednesday morning, in Atlantic, and conduct a Public Hearing on the proposed Fiscal Year 2017 Budget. The hearing takes place in the Supervisor’s Board Room beginning at 8:30-a.m.  Following the hearing, they will convene their regular session, during which the Board will act on:

• A Child Abuse Prevention Council request to proclaim the month of April as “Child Abuse Prevention Month in Cass County,” which includes the placement of a sign and pinwheels on Courthouse property.
• Reviewing the County Compensation Board recommendation for elected officers’ salaries and act on recommendations.
• Approving the appointment of two County Medical Examiner Investigators.
• Adopting the FY 2017 Secondary Roads and Cass County FY 2017 Budget.
• The awarding of a contract for two dump trucks for the Secondary Roads Department.
• and they are expected to approve and then sign the federal-aid project agreement for a bridge replacement project near the south edge of Massena on 740th street over the West Nodaway River.