The task force is placing their focus on streamlining local government to ease the property tax burden.
High property taxes are a major concern for Iowans. The demand for property tax relief transcends both the rural-urban divide and political party identification. Over the past 20 years, property taxes have grown by nearly 110 percent—far outpacing both population growth and inflation. Property tax reform was a leading issue going into the legislative session, but lawmakers failed to advance any reform.
Iowa’s property tax dilemma can be solved through the leadership of Governor Reynolds, who has already demonstrated what is needed to provide relief to taxpayers. During her Condition of the State address, Governor Reynolds launched Iowa’s DOGE task force, modeled after her successful efforts to reform and reorganize state government.
“I like to say that we were doing DOGE before DOGE was a thing. And to build on our success, I’m launching our own State DOGE, to find even greater savings and efficiencies in both state and local government. Because to pass meaningful property tax reform, we also need to be lean at the local level,” said Governor Reynolds.
“When we started our alignment work in 2022, state operations hadn’t been reviewed in forty years – and it showed. Layers of bureaucracy had accumulated over decades, expanding government beyond its core function, keeping us from working effectively as one team, and hampering our service to Iowans. We were too big, too fractured, and too inefficient,” she stated.
Too often, blame for high property taxes is placed on the assessment process. Local governments also engage in an unfortunate blame game—pointing fingers at the legislature, county assessors, or even each other. But there is only one true cause of high property taxes: government spending.
Local governments continue to increase their property tax collections, which means they are increasing their spending. From Fiscal Year 2024 to Fiscal Year 2025, Iowa’s counties are increasing property tax collections by more than 7 percent, cities by more than 6 percent, and school districts by more than 5 percent. Altogether, taxpayers will pay more than $7 billion in property taxes to fund local governments.
With growing frustration, many taxpayers are asking why past reforms have not resulted in tax relief. The reason recent reforms have failed to provide lasting relief is that they did not address local government spending. Going forward, any meaningful property tax reform must confront and restrain spending growth.
The objective of the governor’s DOGE task force is to “continue reducing the cost of government, maximizing the return on taxpayer investment, and leveraging new technology at all levels—federal, state, and local.” A major part of the task force’s work will focus on identifying ways to reduce property taxes.
Terry Lutz, an Iowa task force member and chair of the Return on Taxpayer Investment subcommittee, described the issue as the “elephant in the room.” It appears the task force is headed in the right direction.
The task force is placing their focus on streamlining local government to ease the property tax burden, including the possibility of consolidating Iowa’s 99 counties.
“We do not intend to nibble around the edges. We hope to make bold recommendations to move the needle of efficiency in our government—the way our government delivers services,” stated Lutz. He also noted that they “are looking for ways to reduce the tax burden without shifting the cost to other taxes or fees.”
The approach of rewriting formulas or creating new revenue streams has failed elsewhere—and it has failed in Iowa. In 1934, the legislature adopted the state’s first sales and income taxes, promising they would relieve property tax burdens. Instead, Iowa ended up with two new taxes and, over time, heavier tax burdens across the board. Governor Kim Reynolds has stated this will be a priority for her in the 2026 session. Local government spending is what opened the door to Mr. Lutz’s proverbial elephant in the room. That’s why property tax reform is so difficult. Only by limiting spending in a meaningful way will taxpayers finally see real property tax relief.
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