Past Legislative Accomplishment

Flood Recovery: The 2009 Local Sales Tax Campaign for flood recovery in Linn County and Cedar Rapids was successful under Mr. Grant's direction. Heartland Strategies led a coordinated lobbying effort of Linn County-Cedar Rapids Corridor to secure policy changes and financial assistance for Linn County & Cedar Rapids to assist in the recovery from the 2008 flood.

Public Bonds: In legislative interims, Mr. Murphy specializes in managing public bond referenda throughout Iowa, securing more than $750 million of local taxes for schools and community colleges since 2000, including the Cedar Rapids school bond, the Dubuque sales tax campaign for schools, the Iowa City School District referendum, and the Iowa Valley Community College referendum.

Growth Reinvestment Initiative: This was the development and passage of a financial sharing arrangement between communities affected by natural disasters and the State of Iowa on state sales tax growth in affected areas. For Cedar Rapids, this was worth $265 million.

Lake Delhi Lake District: The Heartland team developed and guided the passage of a financial arrangement between the Lake Delhi District Trustees and the State of Iowa for renovation and restoration of the community dam structure, which was lost in a 2010 disaster.

Property Tax Reform: We have successfully blocked passage of "reform" until municipal governments could negotiate a backfill of lost revenue. Most recently, this included bloackage to protect the Iowa Public Employees Retirement fund (IPERS) and the 411 fund for law enforcement.

Mental Health Reform: Heartland Strategies successfully negotiated the transition to the current regional mental health-disability services system and continue to be on the leading edge of discussion on sustainable funding.

Financial Accomplishments: The Heartland team has successfully lobbied more than $165 million for Cedar Rapids and Linn County, including:

- Community Disaster Grants: $12 million;
- Unmet need appropriation: $8-10 million;
- Carve out on state bonding program: $45 million;
- Eligibility for application for remaining bond applications: $118 million;
- Eligibility for application for roads and bridges bonding (I-Jobs).

Other Policy Accomplishments:
- Extended repayment of disaster bonding for local government;
- State bonding for disaster response to save local government bonding capacity;
- State housing tax credit & historical tax credit to accelerate recovery;
- Authorized cities and counties to issue Heartland Disaster Bonds;
- Authorized expedited eminent domain for disaster areas to acquire abandoned flood damaged property;
- Authorized cities to utilize special election dates for local option sales tax post-flood.