Where Rob Sand and Zach Lahn differ on voter priorities

• Sand supports capping utility fees and ending privatized Medicaid by moving to a nonprofit-managed system. He backs importing lower-priced Canadian pharmaceuticals and raising the state's minimum wage.

• He too supports tax cuts, but he cautioned that they have to balance elsewhere in the budget.

🏫 Schools: Sand said that during his first year, he would boost annual school funding increases to 5%, after years of "underfunding" with 2% annual increases. He wants required school participation in the state's public efficiencies program.

• And he wants more oversight of the state's Education Savings Account program (including an income cap for who qualifies) and changes to how private schools reject students.
• Lahn supports the ESA program but approves of third-party audits tracking how money is spent. He said school challenges go beyond a blanket funding increase, and he wants to specify dollars to help target more individualized student needs.
• He emphasized cutting red tape and letting schools pursue innovations.

💧 Water and cancer: Lahn said he wants to reduce nitrates in Iowa's waterways by funding conservation programs that incentivize farmers to reduce runoff, including saturated buffers.

• He also supports increasing nitrate monitoring and funding Iowa's Water and Land Legacy trust fund (IWILL).
• Sand also supports funding IWILL and expanding conservation programs, including more wetlands and grazing lands.
• He supports requiring home inspectors to get written acknowledgement from homeowners that they informed them of radon risks and offered testing.

📺 What's next: The second debate is Wednesday at 7pm on KTIV.