Gov. Kim Reynolds gave her 2025 Condition of the State Address at the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines Jan. 14, 2025. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Gov. Kim Reynolds, delivering her Condition of the State message Tuesday, said the state needs to take action on disaster recovery in the wake of 2024 floods and tornadoes, in addition to laying out policies she said can help address Iowa’s workforce shortages in child care and health care.
It’s Reynolds’ eighth time giving the speech as governor and her first time addressing the Legislature with supermajorities in both chambers following another election cycle of GOP victories in Iowa. Though Reynolds highlighted the victories achieved with the Republican trifecta on reducing taxes and making changes to Iowa’s education system, much of her address Tuesday focused on the efforts and community support shown by Iowans across the state in the wake of major natural disasters.
Iowa dealt with a series of major disasters in 2024: tornadoes hit towns including Greenfield and Minden in April and May, and major swaths of northwest and north-central Iowa were severely flooded in June. Biden declared three presidential major disaster declarations for the natural disasters that destroyed more than 5,500 homes in the state and caused an estimated $335 million in infrastructure damages.
As Iowa communities faced the disasters and long recovery process, Reynolds said it was “inspiring” to see the massive response from people across the state and country to help those in need.
“I’ll never forget the devastation and heartbreak,” Reynolds said. “But I also witnessed Iowans lifting each other up. Volunteers clearing debris, residents comforting neighbors and local officials and first responders working around the clock. Many of whom had their own homes or businesses destroyed, yet they put others first.”
The governor has already launched multiple programs in collaboration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help Iowans find temporary housing and rebuild impacted homes, but called for new legislation to further help residents and businesses in disaster-affected areas.
Her proposal includes $13.6 million in disaster aid through the Economic Emergency Fund, including $11.6 million for home rehabilitation programs and $2 million to the Nuisance Property and Abandoned Building Fund for aid to local communities seeking to tear down buildings beyond repair in impacted areas. The legislation would also authorize the Iowa Finance Authority and Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management to set up a “Safeguarding Tomorrow Revolving Loan Fund” in preparation for future disasters.
The legislation will also include other policies, like adjustments to certain insurance regulations and giving the governor authority to transfer emergency funds during disasters, in response to issues that arose during the 2024 flooding and tornadoes.
Reynolds thanked volunteers, leaders and state and local workers who responded to the disasters across the state, several of whom were in attendance at the Tuesday speech.
“You represent so many others across the state who demonstrated the strength, compassion and determination that defines Iowa,” she told the group.
Cancer research
Reynolds also discussed more personal events, including her husband Kevin Reynolds’ lung cancer diagnosis, which remains in remission. Her husband is not the only leader at the Statehouse battling with cancer, she added, saying that Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver has been a “powerful example of service, leadership and grace” as he received treatment for a brain tumor.
The governor related these two diagnoses to a larger trend in the state.
“Every case of cancer is a tragedy,” Reynolds said. “And I’m concerned by the data showing that these tragedies disproportionately affect Iowans.”
Iowa has had the second highest rate of new cancer cases for two years, according to the Iowa Cancer Registry, and has the nation’s fastest rising rate. Reynolds said that though factors like high alcohol consumption may be contributing to these rates, “there’s a lot we still don’t know, and multiple factors are likely at play.”
To find out the reason behind the state’s high and growing cancer rates, Reynolds asked the Legislature for $1 million to fund a new partnership between the state Health and Human Services department and the University of Iowa to research behavioral, genetic and environmental factors contributing to Iowa cancer cases.
“Iowans don’t need more speculation – they need answers,” she said.
Fewer partisan proposals
In previous years, the legislation Reynolds named as top priorities in the Condition of the State were controversial measures – last year, a version of her proposal making major changes to the state’s Area Education Agencies – the entities that provide services for students with disabilities – was passed by the Legislature after lengthy negotiations between the two chambers, combined with her proposal to raise teachers’ salaries. The year before, Reynolds was able to move the state’s Education Savings Account (ESA) program forward, providing public funding for private school tuition and associated costs, after years of failing to reach a consensus.
Many of the governor’s 2025 legislative proposals are not issues likely to garner major pushback, and are topics both Democrats and Republicans have called for state action on. She urged the Legislature to pass a hands-free driving bill – something that has repeatedly failed to make it to her desk despite bipartisan support in previous sessions. The proposal would prohibit drivers from using handheld electronic devices behind the wheel.
She also called for schools and school districts to adopt cellphone policies that, at minimum, prohibit the use of the devices during instruction time. Her proposal follows the Biden administration’s December recommendation for schools to set cell phone use policies.
“Let’s make sure the classroom is a place for learning, growth and connection,” Reynolds said. “Let’s pass this bill and give students their best possible chance at success.”
There were still some potentially divisive points brought up in the address. Reynolds said she plans to apply for a federal waiver to implement Medicaid work requirements for able-bodied adults when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Iowa will not be the only state expected to apply for a waiver – 13 states were approved to impose work rules on Medicaid recipients in Trump’s previous administration, and it’s expected that many of these states and others will apply in 2025.
Reynolds did not release details like how many hours will be required to receive benefits, but said work requirements are “common sense and good policy.”
“If you can work, you should,” Reynolds said. “… For the men and women who are receiving these government payments, getting back to work can be a lifeline to stability and self-sufficiency.”
Additionally, she said she plans to make changes to the state’s unemployment insurance system, decreasing the taxable wage base by half and lowering the maximum rate employers pay into the system to 5.4%.
Reynolds also said she will establish a state Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force, mirroring the one to be headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in Washington, D.C. under Trump.
The governor said Iowa was “doing DOGE before DOGE was a thing,” pointing to past laws on state agency consolidation.
“I’m launching our own state DOGE to find even greater savings and efficiencies in both state and local government,” Reynolds said. “Because to pass meaningful property tax reform, we also need to be lean at the local level.”
Emily Schmitt, general counsel for Sukup Manufacturing Co., will lead the state DOGE task force, she said.
The governor is also planning to establish a Nuclear Energy Task Force via executive order to make recommendations on how the state can move forward on implementing the energy source.
“Its potential is amazing, but the investment is big and the horizon is long,” she said. “So we need to get started.”
Some of the largest proposals brought up by Reynolds for the Legislature’s consideration were on ways to expand the availability of child care and health care throughout the state through incentivizing workers to join these fields.
Expanding preschool, child care support
The governor said that her administration has already made substantial progress in increasing child care availability in the state – adding nearly 27,000 slots in the past four years.
“To make the most of this new capacity, a stable workforce is critical,” she said.
Reynolds is proposing creating a statewide child care solutions fund that will allow individuals and businesses to donate to increase child care workforce wages. The statewide program would build off of the model established by the Iowa Health and Human Services department pilot program of nine regional funds launched November 2023 that allowed the state to provide a 2:1 match for regions’ funding.
The Common Sense Institute Iowa released a report in November 2024 that found the seven communities participating in the pilot program had added or retained 233 child care workers through the initiative at 105 providers, as well as adding 275 new child care slots.
Reynolds said “there’s no reason this success can’t be replicated across the state.” In addition to establishing the statewide fund, the proposal would also codify another pilot program that provides free child care to child care workers.
Another proposal introduced by Reynolds also seeks to help parents of young children by building partnerships between child care providers and preschools. Reynolds proposed the creation of an “Early Childhood Continuum of Care” grant program, providing three-year grants of up to $100,000 annually to help fund initiatives that would provide full-day care for children before they enter the K-12 school system.
The fund would be created using $16 million in existing Early Childhood Iowa and federal Child Care and Development Fund Wrap Around Child Care funds, as well as shifting $3.6 million allocated to the state’s Shared Visions grant program for students in at-risk communities to focus on preschool care.
Grants provided through the new program would go to funding efforts that allow children to receive care throughout a parent’s full work day, like busing children from a preschool on school district property to a child care facility, paying for child care staff to work at a local school or for a preschool teacher to work at a child care center.
“It’s about more than convenience,” Reynolds said. “It’s about offering our children the educational foundation they need while giving parents peace of mind that their children are cared for throughout the work day.”
Increasing funding for health care training, recruitment
While citing positive national rankings about Iowa’s health care system, Reynolds offered a half-dozen proposals aimed at addressing health care access and workforce shortages. Iowa is 44th in the country for physicians per capita, according to the governor’s office. She proposed consolidating five existing loan repayment programs for health care education and increasing funding from $4.2 million to $10 million – and opening these repayment programs to anyone who commits to practicing in rural Iowa for five years, regardless of where they received their training.
Another way to bring in health care professionals is through increasing residency slots, she said.
“Doctors often decide to practice where they do their residency,” Reynolds said. “We know too that Iowa doesn’t have nearly enough residency slots, preventing many physicians from giving our state a chance.”
She proposed establishing a Medicaid graduate medical education program expected to draw down $150 million in federal dollars to create a projected 115 residency slots at 14 hospitals and expected to train 460 new physicians over four years.
Also under Medicaid, she proposed a $642,000 investment into unbundling Medicaid rates for maternal health care, allowing higher payments for complicated pregnancies. Additionally, the legislation would increase rates for certified nurse midwives and allow doula services to be covered as a Medicaid benefit.
“These professionals also have an important role to play in supporting our mothers and children,” she said. “Our rates should reflect that.”
Reynolds also proposed to “streamline” the approval process to build new health care facilities by eliminating the Health Facilities Council and shifting the review to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
What else to know
Though Democrats have voiced concerns about the state’s economic stability following tax cuts like the 3.8% flat individual income tax that went into effect Jan. 1, the governor said the state is still in a sound position as they plan for fiscal year 2026.
“We’ve transformed the way the state interacts with our citizens, businesses and entrepreneurs – shrinking and aligning government so that our tax cuts are sustainable,” she said.
Reynolds is proposing about $9.4 billion in general fund spending, about a 5.4% increase from the current year. That includes a 2% increase to State Supplemental Aid, the per-pupil funding for the state’s public K-12 system – an increase from the previous year by roughly $102 million. The governor’s proposed budget also includes a $96.6 million increase for the ESA program.
While Reynolds made the income tax cut a top priority in the last session, there were not any major tax policy changes highlighted in the governor’s Tuesday address. Iowans should still expect tax policy to play a major role this session: Republican leaders in both chambers have said they will propose legislation reducing local property taxes, building off the property tax law that Reynolds signed in 2023.
There are a few other items on the governor’s legislative agenda for 2025, proposals that include:
- Requiring Iowa students to pass the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Naturalization Test to graduate from high school.
- Providing four weeks of paid leave for state employees who give birth or adopt a child, and one week of paid leave for state employees who did not give birth.
- The sale or demolition of the Wallace State Office Building and adjacent parking lot at 502 E. 9th St., Des Moines.
- Allowing economic development – the attraction of businesses to Iowa – to be considered as a factor during Iowa Utilities Commission proceedings when electric utility service territory contracts are reviewed.
- Removing the requirement for a paraeducator certificate in the Teacher Para Registered Apprenticeship program.
- Providing professional development and updating teacher preparation training for educators in math instruction.