Since January, a handful of states have followed the federal government’s lead in creating task forces ostensibly designed to cut costs and improve efficiency in state and local government.
Iowa is part of that group, with Gov. Kim Reynolds announcing in February that the state was forming its own Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)-inspired outfit, in hopes of making Iowa’s government “lean at the local level.”
As Iowa Public Radio recently reported, Iowa’s DOGE-like unit convened on Aug. 7 to unveil a list of 45 recommendations geared toward achieving its goal.
While the list will not be final until members vote on the recommendations at a future meeting, the task force’s suggestions included paying teachers based on their performance and reducing state employee benefits.
Iowa task force member Terry Lutz said that some of the state’s jobs have healthcare and retirement benefits “that far exceed the private sector,” wrote Iowa Public Radio’s Katarina Sostaric. Lutz said the working group recommends eliminating Iowa’s public employee pension plan, known as IPERS, and replacing it with a defined contribution program.
Iowa state employee contributions to their health insurance costs are “extremely low and way out of whack with the private sector,” Lutz said at the Aug. 7 meeting. He suggested that Iowa study how to bring state employees’ compensation and benefits in line with the private sector, adding that the state could consider applying changes to health and retirement benefits only to new employees.
“The current program is creating huge liabilities for our state,” Lutz said at the Aug. 7 meeting. “Currently, the state is contributing nearly 70% to an employee’s retirement plan, where the employee is contributing only 30%. In the private sector, these percentages would be the opposite of that.”
Groups representing public employees in Iowa were quick to respond to the task force’s suggestion.
As the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported, organizations including the Iowa chapters of the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) have launched “hands off IPERS” efforts, asking Iowans to contact Reynolds and lawmakers to share their opposition to the proposal.
“This proposal would strip away the retirement security public employees have earned through decades of service,” staff with AFSCME Local 61 wrote in a social media post.
The Iowa State Education Association (ISEA) said a defined contribution system for incoming state employees would render the current IPERS system unsustainable, in addition to making recruitment for public sector jobs more challenging.
“If you think it’s difficult now to find a teacher or a corrections officer, go after their retirement, take off the table a defined benefit system, and you’re going to exacerbate the existing shortages we have,” Melissa Peterson, legislative and policy director with ISEA, told the Dispatch.
“And, sadly, I think that that might be the intention of some of some of the people sitting around that table. They would like to eliminate our very good, stable, defined benefit system. Because they, as private entrepreneurs, don’t feel like they can compete with (IPERS).”
11 August 2025
Category
HR News Article
