The Iowa Legislature’s Oversight Committee met today and the only item on their agenda was the review of the Iowa Association of School Board’s internal review.  The most glaring and press-worthy item was questioning the former executive of the IASB, Maxine Kilcrease, who allegedly bumped up her own salary by over $150,000 after only a short time on the job.  She was subpoenaed to show up today and she did so with her attorney speaking on her behalf most of the time and when she did choose to answer questions from legislators, she mostly invoked her Fifth Amendment rights.

A former Kilcrease colleague, however, was all too chatty when he testified that Kilcrease went so far as to increase three staff members salaries, as well as her own, because she thought salaries were, “out of whack” compared to other state school board associations.

Last week State Auditor, David Vaudt, held a press conference giving his review of Iowa’s FY 2011 budget and it isn’t pretty.  It also comes as no surprise that the state of Iowa’s budget is so dismal.  The Auditor hasn’t been shy about how bad it is and has said almost the same thing about it for the past year.  What also comes as no surprise is that Democrats haven’t listened to the Auditor.

Iowans will start hearing more and more about the budget in the months to come as the governor’s race heats up.  Governor Culver has claimed to do wonderful things to save Iowans money, including work to pass a government reorganization bill, claiming to streamline government, save money and eliminate unnecessary unfilled positions.  Well, after the Auditor’s review, it looks like the real, meaningfully savings is questionable.  It was only a 1.7% savings for Iowa!  Some savings is better than nothing, but this belt-tightening could’ve been done last year with the same effect. 

The 2010 Legislative Session was a short one, and for the most part, pretty uneventful.  That happens when the state is facing budget shortfalls and doesn't have any monty to play with.  Every year, there are always controversial bills that get people coming out of the woodwork, rallying for or against an issue.  And its amazing what some people get fired up about.  We’ve put together a list of bills that passed in the Iowa Senate this year that grabbed headlines and were important and/or controversial.

The Puppy Mill Bill or HF 2280

Is anyone following the Iowa Association of School Board's dalliances?  The Des Moines Register explains it all here.  Even the Governor came out today saying he was "very concerned with the situation."  By our count, this is scandal number three for the Democrat administration.  First there was CIETC, then the flap over the misuse of the Iowa Film Tax Credits and now this.  We want to know where the leadership is in all this and what could possibly be next?  Democrats will continue to point the finger at someone else, but when will it end:  hopefully in November when Iowans go to the polls.  Enough is enough.
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It looks like nuclear power is in our future.  Well, 13 years into our future.  This past week, the Senate approved a bill that would allow Mid American Energy to conduct a three year study on the possibility of building another nuclear power plant in the state.  There is currently only one plant in Iowa and that’s in Palo.

Power in this state can be expensive and we’re needing more and more of it.  Iowa is still ranked second in the nation for wind power generation but it costs 11 cents per kilowatt hour versus coal power’s two cents per kilowatt hour.  That’s a big price difference.  Last year a new coal plant was proposed to be built near Marshalltown and Majority Democrats made sure to put a stop to it, effectively killing job creation and the expansion of much-needed base load of power that the state can handle.  Lets hope we never experience rolling blackouts like California due to the lack of base load power.  Iowa is already pushing the maximum.