Q&A : John Norwood, Democratic candidate for Iowa treasurer
Don Harrold, Executive Editor
editor@enterprisepub.com
John Norwood, the Democratic nominee for Iowa treasurer, spoke with Executive Editor, Don Harrold, about the state budget, school funding, where public money is invested and the Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Harrold: How do you define Iowa's budget situation?
Norwood: The surplus we're talking about is like the bank account. It's the savings account. We got $4 billion, and we're spending that money down. We're using that money to fill the hole, which is the structural budget deficit. We're spending a billion, $2 billion, $3 [billion] more than we have money coming in, in terms of revenue.
Harrold: How did a fiscally conservative state get here?
Norwood: We're living in an upside-down world. The move to the flat tax, the 3.8% flat tax, together with these other tax breaks in '22 cost the state a billion and a half. And about 50% of that tax break... I mean, who doesn't like a tax break? But about 50% of that went to 5% of the people. So we've moved from a progressive system where wealthier people paid more dollars to help support the budget. We've now moved to a flatter system where it's pushed us into a structural budget deficit.
Harrold: Would you raise taxes or cut spending?
Norwood: I think cutting spending is probably not a particularly good choice at this point in time, because if you go and talk to our city mayors, the bigs and the smalls... We're cutting the library hours. We're cutting the fire department. We're cutting the police department. And so maybe the solution isn't to think about cutting so much as to how do we grow the revenues in a way that then brings us into balance.
Harrold: Growing revenue means raising taxes.
Norwood: Yeah. In order to have services, we got to raise money to make those services.
Harrold: What would your plan be?
Norwood: [Along with the tax cuts,] we also have introduced a new program in the state called private school vouchers that's costing the state over $330 million.
Harrold: Some might say that money would have been spent in schools anyway.
Norwood: Well, it's not [a wash] because probably 80% of that is new spending. So that money is being diverted away from what the public schools previously would have received.
Harrold: Couldn't parents argue it's more money now but a better education, which brings more revenue back to Iowa as those students get better jobs and pay higher taxes?
Norwood: Let me answer the first part of your question, where you're asking about how could you cut some spending.
Iowans are pragmatic people, and I think the idea of taxpayers having to pay for millionaire families to send their kids to private school probably is something that we don't need to do. And so that would be one way, I think, to begin to put some guardrails around the schools.
I'm not against private schools, and private schools play a function, but we have to understand fundamentally we have to keep the public schools healthy.
Harrold: How does this affect rural districts?
Norwood: Let's compare that to, say, a Fort Dodge, or let's compare that to a Missouri Valley, or a Logan. They might have a stable school population, but more likely, they have a declining school population. The property tax base isn't as deep. It's a larger ask.
Here's another difference, is the private schools, they can get their 8,000 bucks and they can decide who they want to take. A member of the school board in Shelby County says, "John, we have a special needs student." This is a $180,000 student that the school district has to bear. The state comes up apparently with 30 to 40,000.
Harrold: Inflation is squeezing schools, health care and infrastructure. What could you do?
Norwood: One of the things people can do in November is express their opinions at the federal level. That's where the importance of Congress stepping up. And we've got a president, for whatever reason, seems to be doing some things that are kind of nutty. And that's causing the inflationary pressure that's hurting everybody.
Harrold: Harrison County is roughly 70% Republican. How do you reach those voters?
Norwood: Well, it's dollars and cents. I'm a financial educator. Forget about what my party label is, but essentially that's what I am.
One of the thematics is the idea of keeping more of our taxpayer money circulating in Iowa. [Schools and municipal governments] park some of that money, about $2.5 billion. Well, one of the things that's happening is a good chunk of the $2.5 billion is being invested out of state. If we can keep that money in state earning a return with our banks and credit unions, there's a second bottom line to that.
If it lands here in Iowa at the bank and the credit union, then they can loan that money out. That money becomes the capital to grow the business here in Missouri Valley, or maybe we're building some new housing, or now we got to do some infrastructure.
Harrold: Is that the treasurer's decision?
Norwood: No. So much of this is what the legislature decides to do. The treasurer doesn't get to decide a lot. Doesn't decide fiscal policy, but the treasurer can, as the people's CFO, raise these issues.
Harrold: What's the No. 1 issue voters raise?
Norwood: Certainly affordability is a big issue. As the treasurer, I like to say I don't get to spend the money, but I can help make the money work harder.
If we take the lowest price building a piece of a road or a school or something, and it turns out that the contractor, the designer doesn't know what they're doing, that's not the lowest price. And so if it's a complex project or a big project, well, maybe we ought to use some skilled union labor to do some of this the right way the first time.
I was in Bondurant a couple weeks ago, knocked a couple red doors in the evening. One listened to me for quite some time. He was a three-time Trump voter, but he said, "I'm done." And the second guy didn't know who the current treasurer was. That's a common theme, that he's not visible, he's not engaged. He's trying to do the job from a home office in Davenport.
Harrold: Why are you running?
Norwood: At one level, it's a calling. I'm 62. I want to live a life of impact. A lot of my life has been public service. I've spent 30 years in business and finance. I ran for office in 2017, '18 as the Soil and Water commissioner for Polk County and was elected to that office.
Harrold: What is something specific on which you disagree with the Democratic Party?
Norwood: I think when we get too much into identity politics, that's divisive. That doesn't help. So we need to be thinking about how we help people not based on, I don't know, the color of their skin and more on the life circumstances they're facing. You can go to Appalachia and find the poor fifth-generation white person who's living in poverty.
Harrold: What didn't we talk about that we should have?
Norwood: The IPERS hat, our public pension system. That includes our teachers, our corrections officers, our municipal employees. 420,000 Iowans are a member of IPERS, one in eight Iowans. And it pays out two and a half billion dollars each year to retirees living in Iowa. And that money in places like Missouri Valley, maybe the retired teachers that are helping support the economy here. So we don't want to privatize it.
Harrold: Does opposing privatization conflict with what you said about investing state money?
Norwood: No, in a way it's keeping the money here. I don't want to push everyone into 401(k)s. When that teacher gets to retirement, if they live to 95 or 105, they still get their money. They don't run out of money. So the privatization talk's not helpful, whether it's DOGE or the Republican legislation back in 2018.
The treasurer is one of seven voting members on the board. The voting board right now doesn't hire and fire the CEO. That's the governor's job. And that's out of step, I would argue. We shouldn't have a red or a blue governor picking a CEO for IPERS.
[The] current governor hired the previous CEO, who just resigned in May under investigation. Two years ago, they fired the chief risk officer for the 46, 47 billion dollar fund because he was looking over the shoulder of the guy managing the portfolio. And he was saying now in a whistleblower lawsuit that the management team was cooking the books for performance bonuses. We need to hold that management team accountable.
Editor's note: This interview is part of the Harrison County Times-Reporter's coverage of the 2026 general election. The views expressed are the candidate's own and do not represent the views of the Times-Reporter. Statements of fact made by the candidate have not been independently verified unless noted. The Times-Reporter will offer the same opportunity to all candidates for this office.
