The Second Session of the 91st General Assembly adjourned Sine Die at 7:07 p.m. on Sunday, May 3, after working night and day all through the weekend to wrap up policy and budgets. Session went into overtime, after per diem ended April 21. 

The Iowa Legislature ultimately passed a $9.6 billion state budget for fiscal year 2027, representing a 1.43% increase from the previous year’s budget. Bills that passed in the last two days of session include the resolution to a difficult property tax reform negotiation process between the House and Senate chambers and Governor Reynolds, with an agreement on the top-priority issue that lawmakers say will deliver an approximately $4 billion property tax cut over six years.

The agreed upon property tax reforms would implement a 2% growth cap on local governments' general levies, with exceptions for new construction, and a 10% homestead tax exemption up to $20,000, which would be adjusted for inflation. The complex bill makes significant changes to TIF, alters school SAVE funding, implements a phased increase of the multi-residential rollback, and aims to increase transparency to taxpayers through new reporting. The final plan was released as an amendment to SF2472 , and lawmakers voted on the package to send it to Governor Reynolds for her signature shortly before adjourning Sine Die.

Another major issue, the use of eminent domain for liquid carbon pipelines, was not resolved this session, and will remain an ongoing pain-point for the next legislature and new Governor.

Other end-of-session highlights included the passage SF2453, a bill that aims to increase venture capital investments by Regents Institutions, into Iowa startup Companies through a one-percent commitment of unobligated endowment funds into state certified Iowa Innovation Funds by July 1, 2027. The bill now awaits the Governor’s signature.

HF2799, an IEDA bill that IowaBio supports that includes an extension of the sunset on the MEGA program, which seeks to attract investment of over $1B in key industries like bioscience, passed over the weekend and has been sent to the Governor. New incentives for the location of a corporate headquarters in Iowa including bioscience companies are also included in the bill. The bill also contains energy provisions for information gathering and dissemination for load forecasting for future growth and use and of electricity in the state and region. The legislation moved after an agreed-to amendment ended disagreements on changes to the 260E program utilized by community colleges for job training for new employees.

In a major victory for IowaBio for the session, IowaBio was able to defeat several very negative anti-vaccine bills, including a bill that would have removed liability protections for vaccine manufacturers and a bill that would have removed vaccine requirements for K-12 students, as well as detrimental 340B legislation.

Note that the Governor has 30 days after session to review legislation that passes in the last three days of session. For policy bills, the Governor may veto a bill that passes in the last three days of session, anytime within 30 days, or she can use a pocket veto at the end of the 30 day period, by simply taking no action to sign a bill. For budget bills, the Governor may also use a line item veto, to strike a particular line item in a budget bill.

Thank you to all of our members for the hard work to make this a successful legislative session!