28.3 - IOWA EMPOWERMENT BOARD CREATED.
28.3 IOWA EMPOWERMENT BOARD CREATED.
1. An Iowa empowerment board is created to facilitate state and
community efforts involving community empowerment areas, including
strategic planning, funding identification, and guidance, and to
promote collaboration among state and local early care, education,
health, and human services programs.
2. The Iowa board shall consist of twenty-two voting members with
sixteen citizen members and six state agency members. The six state
agency members shall be the directors of the following departments:
economic development, education, human rights, human services, public
health, and workforce development. The sixteen citizen members shall
be appointed by the governor, subject to confirmation by the senate.
The governor's appointments of citizen members shall be made in a
manner so that each of the state's congressional districts is
represented by at least two citizen members and so that all the
appointments as a whole reflect the ethnic, cultural, social, and
economic diversity of the state. The governor's appointees shall be
selected from individuals nominated by community empowerment area
boards. The nominations shall reflect the range of interests
represented on the community boards so that the governor is able to
appoint one or more members each for early care, education, health,
human services, business, faith, and public interests. At least one
of the citizen members shall be a service consumer or the parent of a
service consumer. Terms of office of all citizen members are three
years. A vacancy on the board shall be filled in the same manner as
the original appointment for the balance of the unexpired term.
3. Citizen members shall be reimbursed for actual and necessary
expenses incurred in performance of their duties. Members shall be
paid a per diem as specified in section 7E.6.
4. In addition to the voting members, the Iowa board shall
include four members of the general assembly with not more than one
member from each chamber being from the same political party. The
two senators shall be appointed one each by the majority leader of
the senate after consultation with the president of the senate, and
by the minority leader of the senate. The two representatives shall
be appointed one each by the speaker of the house of representatives
after consultation with the majority leader of the house of
representatives, and by the minority leader of the house of
representatives. Legislative members shall serve in an ex officio,
nonvoting capacity. A legislative member is eligible for per diem
and expenses as provided in section 2.10.
5. A community empowerment assistance team or teams of state
agency representatives shall be designated to provide technical
assistance and other support to community empowerment areas and for
the board's efforts to address early care, education, health, and
human services. A technical assistance system shall be developed
using local representatives of the state agencies represented on the
Iowa board and other state agencies and individuals involved with
local early care, education, health, and human services.
6. a. Staffing services to the Iowa board shall be provided
by the state agencies which are represented on the Iowa board and by
other state agencies making staffing available to the Iowa board.
b. In addition, a community empowerment office is established
as a division of the department of management to provide a center for
facilitation, communication, and coordination for community
empowerment activities and funding and for improvement of the early
care, education, health, and human services systems. Staffing for
the community empowerment office shall be provided by a facilitator
appointed by the governor, subject to confirmation by the senate, and
who serves at the pleasure of the governor. A deputy and support
staff may be designated, subject to appropriation made for this
purpose. The facilitator shall submit reports to the governor, the
Iowa board, and the general assembly. The facilitator shall provide
primary staffing to the board, coordinate state technical assistance
activities and implementation of the technical assistance system, and
other communication and coordination functions to move authority and
decision-making responsibility from the state to communities and
individuals.
7. The director of the department of management shall designate
early care staff, as part of the community empowerment initiative, to
provide coordination and other support to the state's early care
system. The early care staff shall work with the state and local
components of the community empowerment initiative, shared visions
programs funded under chapter 256A, and other public and private
efforts to improve the early care system. The early care staff
duties shall include but are not limited to the following:
a. Providing support to the public and private stakeholders
who are involved with the early care system, acting to strengthen the
early care system, and developing accountability measures for early
care efforts.
b. Developing and disseminating accountability measures for
assessing the outcomes produced by the department of education, the
community empowerment initiative, and other publicly funded efforts
to improve early care of young children, including but not limited to
shared visions and other programs provided under the auspices of the
child development coordinating council, high-quality preschool
programs, head start programs, and school ready children grant
programs. The initial measures utilized shall be the individual
growth and development indicators developed by the early childhood
research institute on measuring growth and development or other
measures of high quality to be authorized by law.
c. Collecting, interpreting, and redisseminating data
collected from the measures for assessing outcomes under paragraph
"b". Factors subject to interpretation may include area
demographics, relative expenditures, collaboration between programs
in an area, and other factors impacting the outcomes produced by an
individual program.
d. Annually providing information to the governor and general
assembly regarding the outcomes produced by individual programs. The
information shall be included in the Iowa empowerment board's annual
report.
8. The Iowa board may designate an advisory council consisting of
representatives from community empowerment area boards.
9. The Iowa board shall elect a chairperson from among the
citizen board members and may select other officers from among the
citizen board members as determined to be necessary by the board.
The board shall meet regularly as determined by the board, upon the
call of the board's chairperson, or upon the call of a majority of
voting members. Section History: Recent Form
98 Acts, ch 1206, §3, 20
C99, §7I.2
99 Acts, ch 190, §3--6, 19, 20
CS99, §28.3
2000 Acts, ch 1223, §17; 2004 Acts, ch 1175, §221; 2005 Acts, ch
148, §3--6; 2005 Acts, ch 179, §109; 2006 Acts, ch 1030, §6; 2006
Acts, ch 1157, §4; 2008 Acts, ch 1156, §20, 58
Referred to in § 28.1, 28.4, 237A.30, 279.60
Confirmation; §2.32