Relating to the funding of, the operation of, and appropriation of moneys to the college student aid commission, the department for the blind, the department of education, and the state board of regents, providing for properly related matters, and including effective date and retroactive applicability provisions

This bill appropriates moneys for fiscal year 2021-2022 from the general fund of the state and other funds to the college student aid commission, the department for the blind, the department of education, and the state board of regents and its institutions. The bill is organized by divisions. DIVISION I —— FY 2021-2022. The bill appropriates moneys to the department for the blind for its administration. The bill includes appropriations to the college student aid commission for general administrative purposes, administration of the future ready Iowa skilled workforce last-dollar scholarship program, the health care professional recruitment program, the national guard service scholarship program, the all Iowa opportunity scholarship program, the teach Iowa scholar program, the rural Iowa primary care loan repayment program, the health care loan repayment program, the rural veterinarian loan repayment program, and the future ready Iowa skilled workforce last-dollar scholarship program. The bill provides for the transfer of any moneys remaining unencumbered and unobligated on the effective date of the bill, in the future ready Iowa skilled workforce grant fund to the future ready Iowa skilled workforce last-dollar scholarship fund; and provides for transfer of $400,000 from moneys appropriated to the college student aid commission for purposes of providing skilled workforce shortage tuition grants, pursuant to 2020 Iowa Acts, chapter 1019, section 7, to the future ready Iowa skilled workforce last-dollar scholarship fund. These provisions take effect upon enactment and are retroactively effective to July 1, 2020. The bill reduces the standing appropriations for the Iowa tuition grant program, but increases, from the moneys appropriated for Iowa tuition grant awards for students attending accredited private institutions, the amount used for students who are attending barber and cosmetology arts and sciences schools to $100,000.132 to prohibit, for FY 2020-2021, and each succeeding fiscal year, the commission from awarding a grant under the future ready Iowa skilled workforce grant program to any new applicant, but allows the commission to award the grants to applicants who received a grant under the program in FY 2020-2021, and continue to meet the program eligibility requirements. The bill appropriates moneys to the department of education for purposes of the department’s general administration, career and technical education (CTE) administration, division of vocational rehabilitation services including independent living programs, the entrepreneurs with disabilities program, and independent living centers, state library for general administration and the enrich Iowa program, public broadcasting division, career and technical education reimbursement for expenditures made by CTE regional planning partnerships, school food service, early childhood Iowa fund, expansion of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act birth through age three services, early head start projects, textbooks for nonpublic school pupils, the student achievement and teacher quality program, statewide student assessment, statewide clearinghouse to expand work-based learning, postsecondary summer classes for high school students program, jobs for America’s graduates specialists, attendance center performance/general internet site and data system support, the online state job posting system, successful progression for early readers, an early warning system for literacy, the Iowa reading research center, computer science professional development incentive fund, children’s mental health school-based training and support, for school districts for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, adult education and literacy programs, distribution to the midwestern higher education compact to pay Iowa’s member state annual obligation, and community colleges. Moneys appropriated in FY 2020-2021 to the department for nonpublic school concurrent enrollment payments to community colleges do not revert to the general fund of the state but may be used for the purposes designated until June 30, 2022. This provision takes effect upon enactment.51. The bill amends 2020 Iowa Acts, chapter 1108, to increase the amount appropriated for deposit in the therapeutic classroom incentive fund. The bill appropriates moneys to the state board of regents for the board office, universities’ general operating budgets; the western Iowa regents resource center; Iowa public radio; the state university of Iowa; Iowa state university of science and technology; the university of northern Iowa; and for the Iowa school for the deaf and the Iowa braille and sight saving school. For FY 2021-2022, the bill freezes the amount of tuition and mandatory fees charged by the regent university to no more than the rates set for FY 2020-2021. DIVISION II —— WORKFORCE TRAINING PROGRAMS —— APPROPRIATIONS FY 2021-2022. The bill appropriates moneys from the Iowa skilled worker and job creation fund to the college student aid commission and the department of education.