The Iowa Chamber Alliance (ICA) identified economic growth, workforce initiatives, infrastructure programs and community revitalization as four areas of importance for the state when it announced its legislative priorities at a news conference Wednesday.

The Alliance represents 17 chambers of commerce and economic development organizations throughout Iowa.

“During the past year, the global economic downturn has affected everyone, including the State of Iowa and the people who live and work here,” said ICA Chair Debi Durham in a press release. “Now is not the time to retrench economic development efforts but strengthen them.”

Economic growth:

The Alliance plans to promote economic growth by supporting tax relief for commercial and industrial properties in Iowa, because it believes property taxes are not competitive for those properties in the state. It also believes the state should adjust and simplify its current income tax structure. (See other ways it plans to promote economic growth)

Workforce development:

The Alliance said it believe now is the ideal time to pursue innovative polices to improve student achievement and to focus on retraining workers. It is supporting legislative solutions to better equip students to compete in the global marketplace.

Iowa’s infrastructure:

The Alliance supports a revision of the current Road Use Tax Fund formula to allocate more funds to highly traveled roads and also implementation of Transportation Investment Moves the Economy in the 21st Century. It also will continue to support the implementation of the Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT) Rail Service Plan and continued investment in the IDOT Rail Revolving Loan and Grant Fund to help develop additional infrastructure for rail service to industrial parks.

Community revitalization:

The Alliance will continue to support the Community Attraction and Tourism and River Enhancement Community Attraction and Tourism programs. It will also support funding for the Iowa Brownfield Redevelopment Program and continued funding of the Great Places Program.

See the full release.

/documents/ICA2010newsrelease.pdf