Gazette Daily News Briefing, September 28
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for September 28, 2023.
According to the National Weather Service it will be mostly cloudy in the Cedar Rapids area on Thursday. The high will be around 76 degrees. There may be some areas of fog before 9 a.m.
With only a few days left for Congress to avert a government shutdown, Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said it is “idiotic” to hold up government funding over certain policy goals and argued a shutdown would hurt American taxpayers.
Grassley, a Republican, joined Senate Democrats and most Republicans Tuesday night to advance a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open until mid-November. The bill, which includes around $6 billion in funding for Ukraine, is not likely to gain enough support in the Republican-controlled House to pass.
Some Republicans have pushed for any government funding package to include key conservative policy items like tighter border security and cuts to Ukraine aid. With a slim Republican House majority, those representatives can tank any budget measures that don’t have support from Democrats.
Without a short-term funding bill agreed to by both chambers, the U.S. federal government will shut down on Sunday. Certain essential workers would still report for work but will not get paid until the shutdown ends. Nonessential workers would be furloughed without pay.
Dozens of University of Iowa graduate students and supporters shut down the Board of Regents meeting Wednesday afternoon with a raucous protest, during which they demanded a 25-percent “emergency” pay raise.
The protesters marched into the regents’ meeting on the UI campus Wednesday afternoon — interrupting a presentation from UI Health Care leadership, including new Vice President for Medical Affairs Denise Jamieson.
The UI student union — which goes by Campaign to Organize Graduate Students, or COGS — demands include not just an immediate wage hike but a “more equitable state university system for all.”
In making their demands, the gradu ate students said a “living wage calculator” produced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed the average UI graduate student worker makes 25 percent below the living wage for a single adult in Johnson County.
Iowa schools’ administrative costs are not significantly increasing nor are they a significant driver of overall K-12 public education spending, according to a new analysis from Iowa Auditor Rob Sand, a Democrat.
Statehouse Republicans pushed back on the report issued by Sand this week.
During the annual legislative debate over public school funding, Republican state lawmakers have at times expressed concerns with how much Iowa’s public K-12 schools spend on salaries for administrators.
Sand’s report acknowledges that debate and suggests administrative spending is not a significant driver of public school expenses.
Using state financial figures and federal inflation rates, Sand’s report shows that statewide, Iowa public K-12 school spending on administrative costs increased 20 percent over six years, but when taking inflation into account, administrative spending over that period decreased 1 percent.
Statehouse Republicans pointed out that Sand’s report covers only a six-year period and questioned how administrative costs are defined.
“Our caucus has heard the same concerns from Iowans as Auditor Sand. Many Iowans have seen their school district prioritize administrators over teachers and students,” said Melissa Daetsch, spokeswoman for Iowa House Republicans.
