The Professional Developers of Iowa (PDI) recently announced its legislative priorities for 2024. The group, composed of nearly 300 professionals from the private and public sectors dedicated to Iowa’s economic development, outlined four key areas of focus in a recent news release: economic development environment, workforce attraction and retention, infrastructure investments and quality of life.

According to the release, PDI’s legislative priorities aim to “provide leadership in defining and promoting statewide economic development issues.” For the full list of issues and other public policy topics, read the group’s official statement.

The priorities include:

• Economic development environment
  • Advocate for the full funding of tax credits and other economic development tools that deliver a positive return-on-investment to the state
  • Defend tax increment financing (TIF) and support redevelopment of blighted properties
  • Protect local control of local option sales tax
• Workforce attraction and retention
  • Allocate funds to support workforce training, retraining, apprenticeship, internship and other upskilling programs
  • Invest in programs such as student loan repayment, child care and housing to increase state population
  • Simplify legal immigration into Iowa
• Infrastructure investments
  • Prioritize investments in Iowa’s water quality and other infrastructure
  • Expand broadband connectivity until Iowa achieves 100% connectivity
• Quality of life
  • Increase annual workforce housing tax credit allocation to $50 million to support new owner-occupied housing
  • Address the lack of affordable child care that hinders workforce participation
  • Secure permanent funding for Destination Iowa, a federally funded initiative to increase quality of life in Iowa and attract new visitors