The first Washington County Legislative Briefing of the year was held Saturday morning, Jan. 16, over Zoom. Four area legislators were invited to participate: Iowa senators Kevin Kinney (D, District 39) and Jeff Reichman (R, District 42) and Iowa house representatives Jarad Klein (R, District 78) and Joe Mitchell (R, District 84).

The legislators were four days into the 89th assembly, but many had already signed dozens of bills that came across their desks, including many items left on the table from the last time the legislators were in session.

Mary Audia, the new economic development group director for Washington County, asked the legislators what the biggest opportunities for economic development are in the county.

“There are a lot of good things happening in Washington County,” Senator Kinney said. We have a strong agricultural group and a good bunch of farmers. I’m proud to represent Washington County and the things that Washington County has done for conservation and all the farming practices… I think it’s a way for Washington county to expand and continue to grow and create jobs.”

Kinney said one of the biggest problems regarding economic development in the county is workforce housing, allowing workers in the county to decrease their commute times to good jobs.

Klein echoed Kinney that providing quality housing was important, but added that childcare has been a serious issue for the labor force. Mitchell also commented that Iowa needs to keep a competitive tax code for corporations and small businesses, to incentivize the creation of jobs within the state.

The legislators all agreed that Iowa needs to improve its labor force, whether that is through education or simply bringing more bodies into the state. When asked by an employer in Fairfield, who hasn’t been able to fully staff his business in the past year, the best ways to improve the workforce, Reichman suggested partnering with community colleges to create programs to help fill skilled jobs.

“Partnerships are big thing,” Reichman said. “The sum is greater than the parts. There is a renewed need for people with specific training and technical training to help fill empty roles.”

Klein commented that the house republican caucus has been a champion of community colleges for many years.

“A lot of our places of employment have not been fully staffed for a long time. We’re constantly looking for those people and community colleges are the best place to do that,” Klein said. “There’s been legislation that I’ve been involved in the last few years to ensure that community colleges are the ones doing the continual training and not Iowa Workforce Development because I don’t think the best way is for state government to centralize in Des Moines. It’s better to have it spread out across the state and in our region so that education can happen.”

Mitchell, however, pointed to a different solution for the lacking workforce: bringing in skilled workers from other states and territories to help fill empty jobs.

“We have a bodies problem here. We need more population in this state and that’s what it comes down to,” Mitchell said. “Last year I had a bill to bring skilled workforce people up from Puerto Rico to Iowa to be able to fill those jobs, to be able to start their families in our communities in the state of Iowa. It’s something that I will continue to push, but we need more backing from employers… That’s how we get our workforce problem fixed, by bringing people to the state of Iowa. We can have all the initivies for community colleges but until we have bodies in this state, that’s the only way to fix these workforce problems.”