Local officials told state lawmakers Tuesday that a proposal to prohibit city and county governments from contracting with third-party vendors to collect traffic camera fines runs counter to GOP goals to make government more efficient.

House File 3 follows up on changes made in last year’s law regulating traffic cameras that required localities receive permits from the Iowa Department of Transportation to install automatic traffic enforcement (ATE) systems and use funds collected through ATEs for public safety and transportation infrastructure projects. In addition to limiting third-party contracts for fine collections, the bill would exclude traffic camera fines from setoff procedures, where a person could settle their fine through public payments like tax refunds.

David Adelman with the Metropolitan Coalition, an organization representing Iowa’s 10 largest cities, said during an Iowa House subcommittee meeting the new traffic camera law has gone into effect smoothly overall and met its intended goal. While the 2024 law effectively removed “bad actors,” he said with the DOT denial of 194 of the 348 ATE systems that were located throughout the state as the law went into effect, the new proposal has a “misplaced” intent and would not make the state’s traffic camera system better.

He called for lawmakers to reconsider the measure, saying it is taking a step backward “in the manner of DOGE.” Gov. Kim Reynolds’ announced in her Condition of the State address she would establish a state Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force to find efficiencies in federal, state and local governments.

“Providing a third party to collect the citation or the fines, is creating more efficiencies and allowing the cities to do more with less,” Adelman said.

Gary Grant, representing the City of Cedar Rapids, said the proposal would mean Iowa cities with ATE systems would have to hire staff internally to fulfill the processing and collection work currently done by third-party vendors.

“I know there are a lot of ‘smaller, smarter government’ folks up here, there are folks up here that want to lessen the burden of local property taxpayers,” Grant said. “Adding more staff really doesn’t do that.”

Changes to Iowa’s property tax system have been repeatedly highlighted as a top priority for Republican leaders at the Statehouse. Grant told reporters local governments have been working with third-party vendors for traffic camera fine collections “in the interest of smaller, smarter government” already, and that the proposal would add an additional cost while lawmakers are asking localities to find ways to tighten their budgets.

Rep. Bill Gustoff, R-Des Moines, said while he understood concerns about potential higher costs, he supported moving the legislation forward while continuing to have conversations on the best way to manage the ATE fine collections.

“What that part of the bill intended was to try to get cities to manage their own collections, versus relying on the state government to do that,” he said.