By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

The latest report on the 19 state-regulated casinos shows their economic impact on the state once again tops one billion dollars. Racing and Gaming administrator Brian Ohorilko says that includes all the money spent by the facilities.

“It is payroll, it’s employees coming from Iowa, it’s goods and services being supplied by Iowans. Obviously, it’s taxes that are being paid in stay in the state, and then additional charitable contributions that are made by the casinos,” Ohorilko says. “And that’s separate from those contributions made by the by the licensed nonprofit partners.” He says nearly 92 percent of spending by casinos is with Iowa companies.

“And what’s even more impressive is when you factor out some of the items that cannot be purchased inside the state of Iowa,” he says. “Things such as advertising that may be on the borders and other states, or entertainment, or even slot machines and some of the gaming equipment — then that number increases to 96.8 percent of spending is being conducted in Iowa.” Ohorilko says the economic impact is something that can get overlooked.

“That one billion number has been fairly consistent for the past several years — the one exception was during the COVID year — but that has become something that we have routinely seen,” Ohorilko says.

The report shows an economic impact of $1.077 billion dollars in the last fiscal year.

DES MOINES — The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has finalized a drought plan for use by local, county, state agencies and governments in the event of droughts in the state.

The Iowa Drought Plan was developed in partnership with the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. The plan aims to provide the state with an approach to prepare for, identify, respond to and recover from a drought.

“Just as we must be prepared for floods, tornadoes, and winter storms, we also must be prepared for the impacts of drought in Iowa,” said John Benson, director of the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. “The Iowa Drought Plan, the result of a collaboration between state agencies and a broad range of stakeholders throughout Iowa, is the blueprint we will use to ensure the state is able to address the challenges of drought preparedness, response and recovery.”

Droughts pose serious challenges to Iowa and many of its industries including agriculture and manufacturing, threatening the health of its residents and the state’s environment and economy. The Iowa Drought Plan will provide statewide drought condition evaluations and will give stakeholders and the public information on risk assessment and mitigation measures.

“This plan should provide a way to better communicate drought conditions to Iowans and allow for a consistent response across our state by multiple agencies,” said DNR Hydrology Resources Coordinator Tim Hall.

The plan designates five drought regions for the state, since different areas of the state vary in drought vulnerability due to groundwater resources and rainfall totals. Each region’s condition will be evaluated using four drought categories: Normal, drought watch, drought warning or drought emergency. Drought levels will be determined based on precipitation, the Standardized Precipitation Index, which is based on accumulated rainfall over time, the U.S. Drought Monitor and a standardized streamflow index, which compares current streamflow to the historical record.

“After three years of widespread drought conditions across the state, we have fortunately started to see improvements due to a more active weather pattern,” said Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig. “Because Iowa did not have a plan before the start of our current drought, the Iowa Drought Plan was developed to be forward-looking and aimed at improving and standardizing our response across agencies in state government. Iowa farmers and agricultural stakeholders were asked to provide feedback at several in-person and virtual meetings last year and we believe the Iowa Drought Plan encompasses their valuable input.”

The DNR, Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship make up the Drought Coordinating Team responsible for coordinating messaging on drought levels and conditions. The team will update the plan every five years.

More information and the full plan can be found online at IowaDNR.gov.

By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

The Iowa House has passed a bill to ban instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms. School programs, tests or surveys on those topics would be barred for students in those grades as well.

Representative Skyler Wheeler of Hull is among the 62 House Republicans who voted for the bill. “Parents should be able to send their children to school and trust they are being educated, not indoctrinated,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler said bill “protects the innocence” of Iowa children. “Children go to school to learn how to read, to write, to do math and the history of our great nation,” Wheeler said. “They do not go to school to learn about woke radical gender ideology.”

Representative Sharon Steckman, a Democrat from Mason City who’s a retired public school teacher, responded. “We are not indoctrinating kids in our public schools, there’s no woke agenda and academics are an integral part with everything we do with the child’s education,” Steckman said.

All House Democrats and one Republican voted against the bill. Representative Heather Matson, a Democrat from Ankeny, said the policy will prevent teachers from addressing bullying of some students. “When you end conversation, you create stigma and when you create stigma, you create an unsafe environment,” Matson said.

Earlier this year, Governor Kim Reynolds proposed banning instruction about sexual activity and gender identity in early elementary grades. A bill on this topic and other school policies is pending in the Senate.