Kim Reynolds says she's 'absolutely not' open to redoing Iowa AEA law to amend $68M windfall

Gov. Kim Reynolds says she's "absolutely not" open to tweaking Iowa's recently passed Area Education Agency overhaul to limit how school districts can spend the windfall of millions of dollars they'll be taking over from the agencies, rejecting concerns from some House Republicans.

One of the law's provisions will give school districts about $68 million that the AEAs currently receive to provide general education services and media services. But districts will not have to spend the money on similar services and can use it "for any school district general fund purpose," the law states.

House Republicans have expressed concerns about that section of the law. The chamber originally passed a version of the legislation that would have required school districts to continue spending the money on education and media services — they just wouldn't have to receive those services from the AEAs.

Rep. Brent Siegrist, R-Council Bluffs, last week called the language in the final version of the law "an oversight" and said "the plan is that we’ll put some language in another bill to take it back to the original language."

More: Oops? House GOP seeks to fix 'oversight' in how schools can spend millions from AEA law

Asked by reporters Tuesday if she would be open to the solution that Siegrist suggested, Reynolds said, "No, I’m absolutely not. That was the deal."

Reynolds said the law provides local control to school districts to use the money how they think is best.

"If they want to pass that money on and utilize the AEAs, the beauty of it is they can," she said. "It doesn’t prevent that. But they know best what’s important for the kids in their district, and so they’re going to decide how to use that money. And that’s how it should always be."

Reynolds previously suggested school districts could use some of the new money to raise teacher salaries if they want to spend more than the state will be providing them to reach new minimum salaries of $50,000 for starting teachers.

In the coming school year, districts will gain control over 60% of the money that AEAs currently receive for education and media services. School districts will receive 100% of the money beginning in the 2025-26 school year.

That pool of money amounts to $35.7 million for general education services and $32.3 million for media services.

More: Kim Reynolds signs AEA overhaul, teacher pay raise into law. Here's how it will work:

AEA officials such as Cindy Yelick, chief administrator of the Heartland AEA in central Iowa, say allowing school districts flexibility over how they use the money will likely result in less funding coming to the AEAs to provide education and media services.

"They could use that money in a lot of different ways, so it just means there’s potentially less focus for those dollars on educational services, professional development and media resources," Yelick said last week.

The media services offered by the AEAs include online resources like e-books, search engines, databases and other technology, while the education services include professional development for teachers and school staff, mental health trainers, literacy coaches who can help teachers with new strategies for teaching reading, and more.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Kim Reynolds says she's 'absolutely not' open to tweak AEA law windfall