State departments scramble to complete agency mergers by July 1

DES MOINES — State officials are scrambling to merge some operations by July 1st. That’s when the governor’s plan to shrink the number of state agencies from 37 to 16 takes effect.

The Iowa Department of Education is absorbing the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs as well as the College Student Aid Commission, the Board of Educational Examiners, the STEM Advisory Council and Educational Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

Mark Ford is deputy director and chief operating officer of the Iowa Department of Education.  “It’s going to be fast and furious. It’s a lot to get done,” he says.

Ford says some logistics won’t be resolved when the merger takes effect in three weeks, but he says no one is being laid off and no one’s pay is being cut.  “There have been some concessions and understandings made,” he says, “just so you know, that not everything is going to change July 1.”

Ford made his comments during Thursday’s state Board of Education meeting. Governor Reynolds says the mergers to shrink the number of executive branch agencies will make state government more efficient and more closely match the number of state agencies in states with similar populations.