Greetings and welcome to the Iowa Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) web-site.

PERB is an executive branch agency created by the Iowa General Assembly in 1974 to administer the Public Employment Relations Act, Iowa Code chapter 20, which defines the collective bargaining rights and duties of public employers and public employees in Iowa. It is a neutral agency administered by a three-member Board. Currently there are more than 1,200 represented bargaining units in Iowa's public sector, encompassing employees of the state, cities, counties, area education agencies, community colleges, state universities, school districts and special purpose districts.

We hope the information on this website is useful to you. Thanks for visiting.

James R. Riordan, Board Chair

SEPTEMBER 2012 PERB CONFERENCE AT PRAIRIE MEADOWS RACETRACK & CASINO

PERB is pleased to announce that we will be hosting our 2012 Conference at Prairie Meadows Event and Conference Center in Altoona, Iowa on September 20-21, 2012. A block of hotel rooms have been reserved for attendees at the recently-completed Prairie Meadows Hotel at a rate of $99.00 plus tax. You can reserve your hotel room by calling the Hotel at 515.957.3000 or 800.325.9015 or online at www.prairiemeadows.com. Please reference Group Code 2012PERBCON when making your reservation.

PERB wants to address your questions and concerns at the conference. In order to do this, we need your input. Please send your topic ideas to iaperb@iowa.gov, subject line "Proposed Conference Topic", on or before May 21, 2012. We may not be able to accommodate every topic, but we will do our best to fit as many into the 1.5 day program as we can.

Additionally, if you would like to be a presenter or would like to sit on a panel, please contact Diana Richeson at diana.richeson@iowa.gov.

We look forward to seeing you there!

PERB RULES REVIEW

The Public Employment Relations Board will be conducting a review of our rules, located in Chapter 621 of the Iowa Administrative Code, over the course of the next few months. The review may result in amendments to current rules or the addition of new rules. Before endeavoring into a formal rulemaking procedure, PERB first must determine what rules, if any, should be focused on. This is where you, our constituents, come in.

We are asking you to provide us with informal comments and proposals, along with a brief description of the change you are hoping to achieve. We will review all comments and proposals submitted to us by constituents, as well as our staff, before engaging in the formal rulemaking procedure.

Please remember, this is for PERB RULES ONLY (Chapter 621 of the Administrative Code)! We are not reviewing Chapter 20 of the Iowa Code or any other statutory or regulatory provisions.

Please email your comments and proposals, subject line: "Rules Review", to Janelle Niebuhr at Janelle.Niebuhr@iowa.gov before June 15, 2012.

To view Chapter 621 here on our website, please click on the link up on the left side of this page "Administrative Rules" and then click on "Iowa Administrative Code".

NEW BOARD APPOINTMENTS ANNOUNCED

Governor Branstad has appointed Janelle L. Niebuhr to the Board, to fill the vacancy created by Sue Warner's retirement in June, 2010. An Iowa native, Neibuhr earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa's College of Business in 2002 and worked in the private sector before entering the Creighton University School of Law. Following her graduation from Creighton in 2008, she served a two-year clerkship with a judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri before entering private practice with a law firm in West Des Moines.

Governor Branstad has appointed Jamie Van Fossen to the Board with his four-year term beginning May 1, 2012. A former State Representative for District 81, including much of the Quad City area, Van Fossen is currently employed by MidAmerican Energy as an Economic Development Analyst in Davenport. While a State Representative, Van Fossen chaired the Tax Writing Ways and Means Committee and also served on the Ways and Means, Economic Development, and Local Government committees. In 2001, he was named the American Legislative Exchange Council's Legislator of the Year award.

CHANGE IN PERB FORMS
Parties can now electronically complete the following forms on-line: Request for Impasse Services, Employee Organization Annual Report, and Employee Organization Registration Report. The original, completed form(s) must still be mailed to our office for filing.

ANNUAL REPORTS
Each employee organization must file a PERB Annual Report with its financial report and audit statement within 90 days of the conclusion of its fiscal year.  This is an annual requirement; we do not send out reminders.  Certified employee organizations failing to comply with the internal reporting requirements of Iowa Code section 20.25 may have their certifications revoked by the Board.

Compliance requires the filing of all three documents in the form and manner prescribed by statute and administrative rules.

• Use the name of the organization as certified.  You can check the certification of your employee organization from the left-hand link, “Employee Organization Certifications and Bargaining Unit Descriptions.”

• Complete an audit statement that provides, “the financial report has been reviewed and found to be true and accurate.”  The audit statement must be signed by an auditing committee or a person or persons who hold no other office in the employee organization and who did not prepare the financial report.

We do not accept audit statements signed by officers of the certified employee organization.

• Mail originals only of the PERB Annual Report form and audit statement to PERB for filing; we do not accept copies of these signed documents.  Include with your annual filing a copy of the financial report, which document does not require a signature.

CONTRACTS
Parties should send a copy of their new collective bargaining agreement to PERB for its inclusion in the PERB electronic database. Please e-mail the current document in WORD format to Nancy.Anders@iowa.gov.