We passed about 30 bills on the floor this week. Most of them were basic code languages changes, but a few of them had some merit for NW Iowa.
Below are a few of those bills.
Senate File 440 allows for interstate contracts to be created for mental health and substance-related disorder treatment.
The bill enables appropriate care and treatment to be provided to a person with a substance-related disorder or a mental illness. This would allow patients to go to another boarding state for hospitalization. This would allow treatment to occur in Sioux Falls our Dakota Dunes.
Both voluntary and involuntary commitments were addressed under this bill. This is very significant for our area.
Senate File 227 A bill allowing schools to start on any date; eliminating the wavier and penalty for not following the code. This bill passed the Senate but it sounds like it will get amended in the House to have an August 23rd date.
Senate File 378 a bill allowing a police department to pay defense costs of a police officer that has been unjustly sued.
Senate File 386 a bill that sets up a study to establish what to do with sexual predators that have now become elderly. (The goal is to have these people go to the civil commitment unit for sexual predators in Cherokee, where a nursing home can be set up for these people)