Rearing children isn’t easy. I don’t have any, but that’s what I am told. And so it is in this light that I think it’s best to view the Grow Iowa Values Fund.

The fund is barely 4 months old, and like all new parents, the legislators who gave birth to it maintain high hopes it will reach its $503 million potential. It might yet, depending on how much shopping Iowans do over the next few years, and whether the Legislature opts to tax online sales (a bad idea, as I wrote a few months ago).

There’s been a lot of news out of the Fund in paste weeks, not all of it positive. I maintain, however, that it is nothing more than growing pains.

First, there was political pressure for the Values Fund’s board to rubber stamp $20 million in requests from Wells Fargo & Co., Trans Ova Genetics and Gcommerce Inc. With the potential to create nearly 2,500 jobs, these deals are nothing to sneeze at. However, they happened before the board had a chance to set up formal procedures to evaluate investments.

Then there was the admission by former Values Fund Chairman Holmes Foster that the fund has about $50 million to invest this year and will get another $50 million in the coming months. All told, the fund is currently one-fifth its expected size. Additional money won’t kick in unless the annual growth in sales tax revenues tops 2 percent.

According to Foster, Iowa’s sales tax revenues consistently grew by more than 2 percent prior to 2000. With the downturn in the economy, the rate of increases has not bested 2 percent. Foster, who is also a member of the state’s Revenue Estimating Committee, which forecasts state tax revenues, doesn’t expect the sales tax to do much this year.

According to the most recent estimates, the money that’s been spent already, plus promised cash for Iowa universities and job training, means the Values Fund has about $16 million left.

Most recently, there was the resignation of Foster himself, who explained to me during a recent breakfast meeting that the chairman’s job is a full-time commitment. However, he has been named receiver for the Wolford Group’s bankruptcy proceedings, and there are his duties at the Revenue Estimating Committee. The chairman’s job “is too important” to not receive the complete attention of whoever is doing it, he said.

Specifically, there are more than 150 companies petitioning the state for cash, and the Fund’s board is working on a formal system to evaluate their proposals. Should they give money to each company in the order they applied, or based on some gauge of how successful they are likely to become? If it’s the latter, on what standards will expected success be based?

Board members – who barely have gotten a chance to get to know one another – have been surprised by the fund’s popularity and the demands of the job, Foster said. Most come from the private sector and have outside business interests to manage. If they do agree on standards, how do they find the time to sort through the dozens of applications?

“Nobody imagined the enormity of the job,” Foster said.

The Iowa Department of Economic Development staff will help with analysis and other tasks, but again, it’s new territory. Which employees? To whom do they report? On top of that are the usual tensions between rural and urban interests and business versus labor.

The board hasn’t had time yet to establish itself. It will do so, and lay the groundwork for its credibility, Foster said, based on the decisions it makes.

To me, that sounds just like the normal process through which children grow into healthy and responsible adults.