Two proposals have been released to continue the process of making changes to Area Education Agencies in Iowa.

State Senator Ken Rozenboom is chair of the Senate Education Committee and says the majority of his time in Des Moines has been spent discussing the issue after Governor Kim Reynolds released her intent to see major changes to the organizations.

“The governor started the conversation with her proposal on how we might restructure the AEA system to do two things — to provide better service delivery and to reduce the cost, because our costs relative to the national average for delivery services for special needs students is certainly out of line with the rest of the country. Those goals remain, but I’ve received thousands of emails tell me to slow down — but we are doing this at the normal pace and we have our own self-imposed legislative deadlines to keep us on task and keep the process moving forward.”

Rozenboom says a proposal passed before the funnel deadline out of committee would still make significant changes to AEAs, but do so over multiple years, and further scales back some of the initial wholesale changes proposed by the governor’s office. He expects further amendments and changes, especially as the Iowa House is working on their own proposal.