Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds was joined by Emily Schmitt, general counsel for Sukup Manufacturing Co., who led the Iowa DOGE task force, as she held a news conference Oct. 21, 2025 about the task force’s final report. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Gov. Kim Reynolds said at a Tuesday news conference she plans to use the Iowa DOGE task force’s report to make recommendations to the state Legislature in 2026 — including on ways to lower property tax costs.
The Iowa DOGE task force, convened in February, was based on the federal U.S. Department of Government Efficiency program formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk in the Trump administration. The group of Iowa business leaders, led by Emily Schmitt, general counsel for Sukup Manufacturing Co., met multiple times and held several public meetings over the next several months before submitting their final report Sept. 29.
Though the report was submitted in late September, the list of 45 finalized recommendations had not been shared until Tuesday. Now, the report is publicly available through the governor’s website.
At a news conference Tuesday, Reynolds said the DOGE task force was convened to continue work she has focused on as governor to make government more efficient, pointing to the 2023 law she signed on realigning state government that reduced the state’s 37 executive-level cabinet agencies down to 16, as well as other recent laws to cut and restructure state boards and commissions, as well as the Iowa behavioral health system.
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“I have always believed that it is important that we never settle, that we continue to look for ways to be more effective, efficient and accountable to the taxpayers of Iowa,” Reynolds said.
When task force members released their initial recommendations in August and September meetings, there was significant pushback against certain proposed changes — specifically regarding the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS), and tying extra compensation for K-12 public school teacher and administrators to student achievement.
The governor said “there’s been a lot of public speculation, not to mention misinformation about the potential changes to state benefits that state employees, law enforcement officers, teachers and others rely on” as recommended by the task force.
“You can rest assured that IPERS will be there for your retirement just as you’ve planned and we’ve promised — and that, by the way, was the intent of the task force from the very beginning,” Reynolds said.
The task force had suggested moving IPERS from a defined benefits program to a defined contribution program, in which both the employee and employer would contribute to a retirement benefit plan. This recommendation, introduced in August, was scaled back during later meetings. Terry Lutz, who chaired a work group within the Iowa DOGE task force, said the task force would recommend the state conduct an ongoing study of public employees’ benefits, including consideration of the viability of a defined contribution plan. The recommendation suggests public employees would be allowed to choose between staying on IPERS in its current form or joining a defined contribution plan, but stated IPERS would not change for current public employees.
The final report included a recommendation to conduct a study on public employee benefits, and stated it recommended preserving “all pension and benefit commitments made to existing employees,” with “any new defined-contribution retirement option should be strictly voluntary for current staff and structured to protect the solvency of the traditional pension system.”
The report also recommended, “where feasible, offer employees a choice among benefit plans. For instance, the option to choose a defined-contribution retirement plan instead of a pension for new hires.”
Reynolds said there is already a legislative committee that is supposed to meet every other year to review public employee benefits, and said the task force’s suggestions would be brought before that group of lawmakers.
Democrats and organizations representing public employees have criticized the suggestion, saying the proposed changes would make IPERS insolvent. Rep. Larry McBurney, D-Urbandale, said in a statement Tuesday that “any changes to IPERS and other public pensions would be a devastating blow to Iowa’s workforce and economy.”
“For decades, these pensions have provided a secure retirement for public servants, including teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, and social workers, who dedicate their lives to serving our communities,” McBurney said. “Any changes to this system would break yet another promise to workers and further damage Iowa’s already struggling economy, which is ranked dead last in the nation. Instead of the Governor’s DOGE task force threatening retirement security, we should be taking steps to strengthen Iowa’s workers.”
Several GOP legislative leaders and lawmakers have said there is not significant interest in making changes to IPERS in the 2026 legislative session.
One of the other high-profile suggestions was to tie public school teachers’ and administrators’ pay to student achievements. While Lutz had characterized the proposal as a “pay-for-performance system” in August, he later clarified the suggestion would not cut educators’ pay, but would provide incentives like up to 10% of base pay through bonuses for teachers who meet certain student achievement goals.
The final report recommended establishing a “merit-based compensation framework – including a bonus structure, teacher professional development and incentives for those in high-need schools– in order to improve student outcomes and financially reward high-performing teachers.”
The governor said the state Department of Education already awards Teachers Accelerating Learning (TAL) grants to “incentivize teachers that have gone above and beyond,” similar to the task force’s proposal.
Iowa State Education Association President Joshua Brown said in a statement merit-based pay structures for teachers do not result in improved scores for students and schools in the most need of assistance.
“The ‘pay for performance’ recommendation is a tired scheme, for a system repeatedly proven ineffective and harmful,” Brown said. “The metrics used to measure performance are unreliable and often irrelevant. They are biased in favor of high-performing students and proficient test takers and do nothing for students living under circumstances outside their control. We need our government to support our students and education professionals, not devise ‘fixes’ that don’t work.”
Though less contentious than changes to IPERS and teacher pay, Reynolds highlighted DOGE suggestions to make local governments more efficient through sharing resources and services. These suggestions, and finding new avenues to save reduce local government costs, will be taken into account as she plans to craft legislation aimed at lowering property tax costs in 2026.
Reynolds indicated she may suggest a system to provide incentives to local governments to implement new resource sharing methods — but that these incentives would “have to be time-certain.”
“That is a problem — sometimes we incentivize, and they’re supposed to recognize some savings from collaborating and working together and sharing those services, and then I just backfill it with an incentive forever, and so that kind of defeats the purpose,” Reynolds said. “So I do believe there’s a role for that … it just should be, like, a couple years, maybe three years, for them to adjust and get everything settled and really operational, and then that needs to go away.”
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