With the 2025 legislative session underway in the Iowa State Capitol, House Speaker Pat Grassley of New Hartford says some key issues will be at the forefront of discussion.
He says limiting the growth and providing certainty to taxpayers are key factors in ongoing discussions about property taxes.
“When Iowans receive their tax bill, maybe their tax rate didn’t go up, but due to increases in their assessments, they’re seeing significant increases on their property tax,” Grassley says. “So all of those things are going to be part of this broad conversation that we have, knowing that this is a very difficult conversation. It’s one that we continue to have every few years in the legislature. But I think it’s getting to the point when I have businesses coming in here, like I had this week, a major employer in Iowa in a rural part of the state that saw a 170 percent increase on their property tax over the last few years. Those kinds of conversations need to hit home with us and we need to make sure we’re providing certainty for the taxpayers of Iowa.”
The legislature is expected to act on a proposal by Governor Kim Reynolds to limit cell phone usage in school classrooms. Grassley says the likely course of action will be to implement minimum standards and leave specific policies up to local districts.
“A lot of the school districts in the state, not all, but a lot, have different variations of policies. And so we feel that the best thing for us to do is look at the instructional part of school and make sure cell phones aren’t there to be a distraction from our students trying to learn. And if schools want to go further, allow them to do so, but leave that at the local level. So what I think we’ll be working on here in the House, obviously the governor proposed in her speech, would be setting a minimum standard, which is instructional time would be the minimum standard and allow schools the flexibility if they would like to do more or how they would implement that minimum standard that we’d have. So I would feel fairly confident in saying I expect us to engage in that issue this session.”
Grassley represents House District 57, which includes Butler County and western portions of Bremer County.
Interview with Grassley:
