United Way announces 2016 advocacy priorities

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United Way of Central Iowa announced its lobbying priorities for the 2016 session of the Iowa Legislature in its key area’s of education, income and health.


“United Way brings together coalitions of businesses, nonprofits, government and education, working toward solutions to improve the conditions for all Iowans,” United Way of Central Iowa Advocacy Chair Georgia Van Gundy said Tuesday during a breakfast meeting attended by local legislators and 125 community leaders.


In the area of health, United Way’s top legislative priority is to develop a statewide children’s mental health system to provide core services for children regardless of the payment source.


For education, United Way will ask legislators to strengthen policies to increase the number of Iowa children reading proficiently. One in four Iowa children does not read proficiently by the end of third grade, a strong predictor of future education success.


Among the education policy recommendations:
  • Support for summer literacy programs for all at-risk students to prevent summer literacy loss. In 2017, children will be required to attend summer school if they are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade, as mandated by a law passed in 2013. There is currently no funding for schools to implement this mandate.
  • Expand the Iowa Reading Corps to help children read proficiently by the end of third grade. Iowa Reading Corps is an Americorps program that places full-time volunteers in schools to help improve reading skills.
  • Expand funding for Iowa’s growing English language learner (ELL) population.
For the income priority, United Way seeks to reduce the “cliff effect,” which causes a loss of public child care benefits and financial hardships when a worker exceeds a certain income threshold. Recommendations include:
  • Increase the child care assistance family subsidy to 185 percent of the federal poverty level, from its current 145 percent.
  • Continue to support Pathways for Academic Career and Employment (PACE) programs to prepare Iowans for middle-skill jobs in the Iowa economy.
  • Create a task force at the Iowa Department of Education to gather data on key barriers and create new pathways to high school equivalency attainment.
  • Appropriate $1 million for the Iowa Employment Rides Initiative, a matching fund to improve transportation to jobs and training.