(Radio Iowa) – A report from State Auditor Rob Sand shows the State of Iowa spent nearly 12 BILLION dollars in FEDERAL funds the last fiscal year.

About six percent of that federal money was related to pandemic era spending. Some of it came from the CARES Act President Trump signed in 2020 and some from the American Rescue Plan Act that President Biden signed in 2021. The report covers the period from July 1st of 2022 through June 30th of 2023. It shows the State of Iowa received 46-MILLION dollars worth of vaccines during that 12 month period.

While the state gets money from 345 federal programs — about half of all federal funds sent to the State of Iowa in the last fiscal year were spent on Medicaid and food assistance programs which are administered by states.

(Radio Iowa) – A popular summer concert series in central Iowa is changing its venue. Andy TeBockhorst, the interim executive director of the Des Moines Music Coalition, says the 80/35 Music Festival has been held the past 14 years in the Western Gateway area of the capitol city’s downtown, but it will move to Water Works Park this July 12th and 13th.

“We’ve already seen Water Works Park be established as a premier concert venue for central Iowa, and moving the festival there does a number of things for us,” TeBockhorst says. “It opens up opportunities for additional activities, additional stages. We’re going to have stuff going on all over the park.”

The 1,500-acre Water Works Park is enormous, almost twice the size of New York’s Central Park. Another change in 80/35 this summer will be the addition of overnight camping, mirroring the Hinterland Music Festival, which is scheduled for August in Saint Charles.

“We’re learning from them and we’re partnered with them and we think it’ll be a big thing,” TeBockhorst says. “It’s just an opportunity for people to get really, fully immersed in the experience.”

The festival will feature a main stage in the paid area, and free stages for anyone to attend. In past years, 80/35 has drawn crowds of 25- to 30,000 for the music, art and culture, and he’s hoping the new venue will allow it to grow even larger.

“We’re just hoping that this is an all-new experience. This is a premier event for central Iowa and it’s one of the largest nonprofit festivals in the country,” TeBockhorst says. “It’s the only nonprofit one in Iowa and we just think it’s a really important thing for central Iowa and we can’t wait to have people come back.”

The lineup will be announced on April 12th and TeBockhorst says it will include local, regional and national bands and artists across several genres, including multi-Grammy-winning headliners each night. The theme for this year’s 80/35 is, “Some Call It Sorcery, We Call It Music.”

(Greenfield, Iowa) – Adair County Sheriff Jeff Vandewater reports four arrests. At around 2:30-a.m. on March 27th, Deputies in Orient arrested 30-year-old Mark Donald Cooley, of Orient, for Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. An investigation determined the vehicle Cooley was driving contained a glass jar with a substance inside that was consistent with marijuana, various containers and packages of bud marijuana vape cartridges, and a package of edibles. A marijuana grinder with marijuana shake present inside, and a vape device with a cartridge inside marked as one that contained THC or marijuana product inside. The items were confiscated. Because he cooperated with the deputy and was truthful in his statements, Cooley was cited on the paraphernalia charge, and released at the scene. He was additionally issued written warnings for Improper Registration Plate Lamp and Failure to Provide Proof of Financial Liability.

On March 28th, 39-year-old Brandon Michael Reilly, of Greenfield, was arrested by Adair County Deputies, on a Union County warrant charging him with two counts of Theft in the 5th Degree. Reilly posted bond  short time after his arrest, and was released from the Adair County Jail.

On March 24th at around 12:10-a.m., Adair County Deputies arrested 19-year-old Ryan James H. Cook, of Anita, for Public Intoxication. Cook was arrested in Adair and later released on a $300 bond. And, at around 12:25-a.m. on March 26th, 38-year-old Daniel Joe Wilson, of Bridgewater, was arrested in Bridgewater, for Domestic Abuse Assault/Bodily Injury or mental illness, and Child Endangerment.

Wilson was released later that day on a $2,000 cash or surety bond.

(Radio Iowa) – County officials could decide if property owners in their county may continue getting a tax exemption for land with timber or fruit trees on it under a bill in the Iowa Senate.The bill, which changes the state’s forest preserve program, won House approval with just the 51 votes required for passage. Representative Austin Harris, a Republican from Moulton, was the only lawmaker who spoke in favor of the bill.

“This bill is about local control, leaving it up to the counties to decide whether the Forest Reserve program in their county works for them or not,” Harris said. Under current Iowa law landowners who agree to maintain at least 70 fruit trees or at least 200 trees per acre do not pay property taxes on that ground. The Iowa Farm Bureau has long argued the program is unfair to other property owners and in previous years bills called for repealing or reducing the property tax break. This year’s bill gives county boards of supervisors the power to eliminate the tax exemption in their county.

“Leaves it up to our local elected officials that this program impacts and the citizens,” Harris said,” it leaves it up to them to make that decision.” Representative Chuck Isenhart, a Democrat from Dubuque, says the bill gives county officials a green light to raise property taxes on 60-thousand landowners who have enrolled more than 800-thousand acres in the program. “In 1906 the Iowa legislature passed a landowner property tax incentive we now know as the Forest and Fruit Tree Preservation Act to reduce or eliminate property taxes to incentivize landowners to hold their poorer lands in timber for erosion control, watershed protection and game cover,”Isenhart said, “and we have been presented with no evidence that this program is not achieving those goals.”

Isenhart was the only critic of the bill to speak in House debate. If the property tax exemption were eliminated in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, landowners with timber or fruit tree orchards enrolled in the program would owe 12-point-seven million dollars in property taxes next year.

(Radio Iowa) – A deadline is coming up for those who may have unclaimed tax refunds from 2020. I-R-S spokesman, Christopher Miller, says there is a chunk of unclaimed money out there. “The I-R-S estimates there is nearly 11 dollars million waiting for around 10-thousand people in Iowa who did not file a 2020 tax return,” he says. There is a three-year deadline for each tax filing year for you to claim your refund. The deadline for filing for 2020 refunds is May 17th, which gives you a little more time as the normal tax filing deadline was extended by the pandemic.

“So we issued a notice at that time letting folks know that the regular deadline for taxes had been postponed to May 17th which is why it’s the deadline to get those old refunds,” Miller says. Miller says the pandemic left a lot of people in different situations and that is why they may not have filed a return in 2020.

“Perhaps these folks that fall into this category had a part-time job or a small job, and they made money but didn’t make enough to legally require them to file a tax return. So they didn’t,” he says. “But what they may not realize is if your employer was withholding money from your check for taxes, you could get that back in the form of a refund.”

Miller says many low and moderate-income workers also may be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit for 2020 as well.

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Glenwood Police Department reports a man was arrested today (April 1st), on an OWI charge. 18-year-old Ethan Kiefer, of Glenwood, was arrested for OWI/1st offense, and possession of a controlled substance. Kiefer was released from custody after posting a $2,000 cash or surety bond.