PHOTO BY ABBY KOCH/MARSHALLTOWN COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT Sen. Kara Warme (R-Ames) and Rep. David Blom (R-Marshalltown) address the MCSD Board of Education about 2026 legislative priorities during Monday night’s board meeting.

Property taxes, a topic that is dominating a lot of political discussions in Iowa, were brought up at the regular Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education meeting on Monday night.

Rep. David Blom (R-Marshalltown) and Sen. Kara Warme (R-Ames) shared their hopes and goals for the upcoming Iowa legislative session, which begins Jan. 12. Both legislators are expecting property tax reform to be a matter of high importance this year.

Board President Sean Heitmann asked them if they could provide any insight as to what might be coming down the pipeline in terms of property tax reform.

Warme could confirm it is a high priority, but did not have specifics on what the policy ideas will look like.

“Probably more so, and we should see policy proposals sooner in this session,” she said. “Whereas last time, we walked in expecting it and it was a while before anybody saw it. Sen. [Dan] Dawson (R-District 10) on the Senate Ways and Means said he’s hoping to draw up something in the first couple of weeks. Then the governor got involved and did her listening sessions around the state. We have not seen her policy proposal yet. So, I don’t have details of what it will be. I know we will be looking at it.”

Blom also believes there will be movement on property tax reform sooner rather than later.

“When we start the session on Jan. 12, I do expect to see study bills dropping,” he said. “Expecially in the first week, I would expect the governor’s State of the State Address should come forward with a more specific policy proposal.”

Blom knows there was frustration during last year’s session on the reform taking many months, but it is a complicated subject.

“We hope to get clarity not only on the proposals, but also the impact that it might have on the local taxing entities that are established by the state,” he said.

The difficulty will be modeling the impact reform will have, Warm said, which is why she believes it continues to “not get done.”

“I suspect we will start with some full scale redesign type ideas to poke holes in,” she said. “Again, I personally think it would be more realistic at this point to try to take some steps over time, encourage sharing agreements, take away the penalty for new growth areas within cities that right now are not part of the revenue cap that’s in place — look for things we could try piece by piece. I know I hear a lot. I imagine you hear a lot from people who feel they are being taxed out of their homes, just the challenge of fixed income folks with the high bills for property tax and insurance.”

Superintendent Theron Schutte believes property tax reform will be bigger than it was 12 months ago, but there is a concern.

“If any of the levies go away that have helped support our efforts as a school and community, and then what does that mean for our overall local control of tax rates as it applies to funding education in general?” he asked. “I would say over the years it has been a hard thing for people to wrap their heads around in terms of what is it really going to mean if it happens? . . . Obviously I am most interested in what it means for us as a school district if some of these changes that are being proposed take place.”

Warme agreed with Schutte’s local control perspective, as the funds are not going to the state.

“But there’s enough Iowans speaking to their state government that we’re all trying to dig in and see what we can do to improve it,” she said.

Schutte also told Blom and Warme state supplemental aid remains a high legislative priority for the Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD). He understands the budget might be even more challenging for the state in 2026, which might make a good increase in state supplemental aid difficult but it is critically important to public school districts.

“Eighty percent of our funds go to teacher salaries and benefits,” he said. “If we can’t be competitive, it just makes it that much harder for us to fill positions.”

Schutte added that for the first time in the 10 years he has been with the district, they have had the highest fill rate for teachers and support staff. He believes that is due to strides made within the district for hourly staff.

“We moved toward the $15 minimum before that became a thing for the state,” Schutte said.

He told Blom and Warme the legislative priorities for the school district have not changed from the previous year, other than some might be more important in 2026, such as preschool. In the last couple of legislative sessions, there has been discussion about preschool and whether it can be moved from half-day to full-day.

“The kids who are most going to benefit from the opportunity are kids in low-income families,” Schutte said. “. . . I think for our district, it would be a game changer if we had that available. I think the vast majority of the families would take advantage of that. For those that don’t want it, you wouldn’t have to do it.”

He added that MCSD does not have the building capacity to offer full-day preschool, but if it happened, they would figure it out because it is important.

Schutte also told the legislators he would like to see a change to the chronic absenteeism law. If a student visits a post-secondary school, the state does not count that as an excused absence.

“It seems odd to me that college visits don’t count as an excused absence for kids,” he said. “It seems counterproductive that we’re trying to prepare these kids for career readiness, which in many cases, involves post-secondary education.”

When Schutte shared his concern previously, he was told students could visit colleges on weekends. However, when those special weekend events happen, the students see the best the school has to offer. Seeing the school on a normal day would help families determine whether or not it is a good fit for the child and ensure money is not wasted.

Blom told Schutte he had discussed that with the House Education Committee chair, Skyler Wheeler (R-District 4), who seemed open to the idea.

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.