A bill to eliminate Iowa’s 34 volunteer boards that coordinate local early childhood services has been tabled in the Iowa House.
The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services proposed the bill (HSB 623). A department official said it would replace the Early Childhood Iowa (ECI) local and state boards with a more efficient and consistent state-run system.
Several ECI officials said the bill would end services that are tailored to the specific needs of kids in their communities. McKinley Bailey, executive director of the ECI board for Hamilton, Humboldt and Wright counties, said state health officials don’t understand what local boards do.
“If you pull all of this out of there, you are ripping apart a system, and they have never taken the time to figure out what they’re blowing up. They don’t even know the basics of what we do and how we do it,” Bailey said.
Republican members of a House subcommittee said they want to find ways to improve the system, but they don’t support the current bill.