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Iowa gov’t efficiency task force report coming Sept. 29
A member of the government efficiency group Governor Reynolds appointed this spring is apologizing to other committee members for comments he made last month about teacher pay and the IPERS pension plan for state and local government employees.
“It seems some of my comments from the last time we met were not clear and have led to misinterpretation and undue concern from our valued educators and other public sector employees,” Terry Lutz, a former Fort Dodge mayor, said this afternoon.
In early August, Lutz said the current pay system for teachers and administrators isn’t working because it “rewards length of service” and he suggested teacher pay should be linked to performance. At a meeting this afternoon, Lutz said no one on the committee has suggested cutting teacher pay.
“In fact, we were focused on increasing teacher pay and, on top of regular pay, providing incentives in the form of bonuses up to 10% of base pay to those educators who can be measures and rewarded for increasing student achievements,” Lutz said, adding that other states are “figuring out how to do that” and students’ test scores are improving.
Lutz also indicated the committee’s final report will call for a study of compensation systems for all public sector employees and will suggest lawmakers consider giving future employees the option of choosing a 401k style retirement benefit rather than a pension.
“Those benefits that have been promised to current employees should remain,” Lutz said this afternoon. “We would never recommend anything that would jeopardize the solvency of our pension benefits…and if my comments contributed to that belief, then I apologize to all of our valued public employees for that.”
The top two Republicans in the legislature issued statements in August, saying the legislature isn’t interested in making changes to the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System.
The government efficiency task force met in person for the final time on today, but its final report will not be publicly released until it’s presented to the governor on September 29. Task force chair Emily Schmitt said she’ll try to distill 75 different meetings over 167 days into a set of final recommendations that will make an impact.
“Words matter and they can pull people. They can uplift people, but they can also push away,” Schmitt said this afternoon. “We’ll take that into consideration and really make sure that the data’s there, the citations are, the sources.”
Schmitt emphasized that the group wasn’t asked to come up with a certain amount of budget savings. “We were asked to look at the effectiveness and process,” Schmitt said. “And as we know in business, especially on the factory floor, that what follows effectiveness and process is savings — whether it’s savings of time, savings of money, savings of resources.”
Schmitt is the chief administrative officer and general counsel for Sukup Manufacturing in Sheffield.
The governor’s government efficiency task force has discussed dozens of different recommendations, like streamlining job training programs, merging IT systems and setting up a “red tape hotline” in state government for complaints. The panel is likely to suggest more government business should be conducted electronically, a move that could save the State of Iowa $1 million a year in postage.
