Gazette Daily News Briefing, November 21

The Gazette Daily News Podcast

This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for November 21, 2023.

According to the National Weather Service rain will be likely in the Cedar Rapids area on Tuesday morning, but should come to an end by 8 a.m. It should be cloudy during the day, with a high near 47 degrees. Tuesday evening the low is listed at 27 degrees, with a blustery wind.

Cedar Rapids school leaders are considering ways to reverse the district’s declining enrollment trend, looking at “rich opportunities for growth,” including better marketing preschool and kindergarten in the hopes of capturing and retaining those families.

The district’s certified enrollment for the 2023-24 school year — a count taken by every school district in Iowa in October — is 14,697 students, an increase of 45 students from last year, according to data presented during a Cedar Rapids school board meeting Monday.

“That’s fantastic because that reverses a trend,” said Craig Barnum, chief information officer for the Cedar Rapids Community School District.

This is lower, however, than the 16,140 students within the district’s "attendance footprint,“ who are open enrolled into neighboring public school districts or private or non-public schools, Barnum said. In Iowa, school districts’ enrollment is a driving factor of state funding.

Increasing enrollment is one goal of the district’s strategic plan, approved by the Cedar Rapids school board in September. By June 2027, the district plans to stabilize enrollment and see a 1 percent increase.

There has been a decline of about 1,100 students in Cedar Rapids schools since the 2010-11 school year, according to district data.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said Monday she was in talks with legislative and industry leaders about further reducing Iowa’s income tax rates in the upcoming legislative session.

Reynolds promised another round of income tax cuts when she announced in September the state ended the fiscal year with a $1.83 billion budget surplus.

Speaking with reporters on Monday, Reynolds said she wants to make sure any tax reductions put in place will be sustainable in the long term.

Reynolds pointed to the surplus and the taxpayer relief fund, a separate fund that ended last year with $2.74 billion, as evidence that Iowa is collecting too much in taxes.

Reynolds said she would have more details about the plan in her Condition of the State address in January. Iowa’s 2024 legislative session starts Jan. 8.

At a Cato Institute conference in February, Reynolds said her goal is to eliminate the state income tax by the end of her current term.