The Record

Last updated: April 6, 2026

What Iowa has already done. Every event documented. Every source cited.

Every event on this page is documented through enacted legislation, executed contracts, published government reports, official announcements, or independent media investigation. Sources are cited throughout.

Contents

  1. 1. The Overview
  2. 2. The Timeline
  3. 3. 2014: The Juvenile Home Closure
  4. 4. 2016: Medicaid Privatization
  5. 5. 2017: House File 291 — Collective Bargaining Restructured
  6. 6. 2023: The Guidehouse Report — Privatization Recommendations
  7. 7. 2025: Prison Healthcare Privatization — Attempted and Reversed
  8. 8. 2025: The DOGE Task Force — IPERS Recommendation
  9. 9. 2026: The CGI Master Agreement
  10. 10. Source Documents

1. The Overview

The Contract page on this site documents the CGI master agreement — what it says, what it enables, and what it leaves undefined. But a contract does not exist in isolation. The question is not just what this agreement allows. The question is what has already been done to make this agreement possible.

A decade of documented actions

Over the past decade, Iowa state government has taken a series of documented actions that, viewed individually, each have their own stated justification. A facility closed for federal compliance reasons. A program was privatized to save money. A law was rewritten to modernize labor relations. Agencies were reorganized for efficiency.

Several of these actions share a structural result: they reduced the number of Iowans on the public payroll, changed the legal framework governing public employees, transferred public functions to private entities, or identified specific state operations as candidates for privatization. This page does not claim these actions were coordinated toward a single goal. Each had its own stated rationale, and some were reversed after opposition.

What this page documents

This page documents the chronological sequence. Where outcomes are relevant to the current outsourcing discussion, that relevance is noted. This site does not claim to know the intent behind any individual decision—only what was done, what resulted, and in what order.

This page presents that sequence. Every event is documented and sourced. Where outcomes have been audited or studied, the findings are included. Where stated justifications differ from documented results, both are presented.

The record begins in 2014 and runs through the signing of the CGI master agreement in 2026.

2. The Timeline

Year Action What It Did
2014 Iowa Juvenile Home closed 93 employees laid off on five weeks' notice. $10M removed from local economy.
2016 Medicaid privatized 845,000+ beneficiaries transferred to for-profit MCOs. No savings documented.
2017 HF 291 enacted Non-public-safety employees lost ability to bargain over subcontracting, insurance, staff reductions, grievance procedures.
2022–24 Glenwood Resource Center closed State capacity reduced from two disability resource centers to one.
2023 Government reorganized (SF 514) Agencies cut from 37 to 16. Guidehouse report names Iowa PBS, ICN, Historical Museum, Volunteer Iowa as privatization candidates.
2024 PERB eliminated (SF 2385) The independent labor-relations board dissolved. Functions moved to Employment Appeal Board.
2024 One-third of state boards and commissions eliminated Implemented by executive action. Continued structural reduction of institutional infrastructure.
2025 Prison healthcare privatization attempted ~200 medical professionals, ~300 total employees threatened with IPERS loss. Staff exodus. Abandoned.
2025 Iowa DOGE Task Force Recommended eliminating IPERS for new hires. Pulled back in final report. 45 recommendations under review.
2026 CGI master agreement signed Open-ended contract with U.S. subsidiary of Canadian multinational. No cap on SOWs. No Iowa hiring requirement. Scope broad enough to cover any state function.

What follows is the detail behind each of these actions — what was said, what happened, and what changed as a result.

3. 2014 — The Juvenile Home Closure

December 2013 – January 2014

What Happened

On December 9, 2013, Governor Branstad announced the closure of the Iowa Juvenile Home in Toledo, Iowa. The facility would close by January 16, 2014 — five weeks from announcement to closure. Ninety-three employees were laid off. Twenty-one girls housed at the facility were transferred elsewhere.

The Iowa Juvenile Home was one of the largest employers in Tama County. Its closure removed an estimated $10 million in annual funding from the local economy.

Stated Justification

The administration cited declining population at the facility and a shift toward community-based care.

Documented Outcomes

All 93 employees were laid off. AFSCME Council 61 president Danny Homan and four Democratic legislators filed suit in Polk County District Court seeking an injunction to prevent the closure. The closure proceeded.

The closure raised concerns about placement disruptions and reduced in-state options for girls in the juvenile justice system.

The closure moved from announcement to completion in five weeks, through executive action rather than legislative process. The legal challenge did not prevent it. The community absorbed the economic loss. Similar elements — speed, executive authority, and limited notice — appear in later actions documented on this page.

documented Sources: Iowa Juvenile Home public records; AFSCME Council 61 lawsuit filing (2014); media reporting.

4. 2016 — Medicaid Privatization

April 2016 – Present

What Happened

Governor Branstad issued an executive order transferring administration of Iowa's Medicaid program to for-profit managed care organizations. On April 1, 2016, three private insurers took over management of care for more than 845,000 adults and children across the state.

What Was Promised

The administration stated that privatization would save the state and taxpayers money while improving care coordination for beneficiaries.

What Was Delivered

Provider Payment

Within four months of the transition, a survey of more than 400 Iowa doctors, hospitals, clinics, and nonprofit providers found that the majority were not being paid on time by MCOs. Administrative costs were increasing rather than declining.

Care Quality

An auditor report found that 51.5% of Medicaid providers said privatization negatively impacted care quality. 6.1% said it was beneficial.

Cost Savings

The state has not produced data demonstrating that privatization saved money. Multiple independent reports indicate costs increased.

Downstream Loss

Black Hawk County's publicly owned nursing home — operated by the county for over 100 years — was sold to private company Pritok Capital after MCOs owed it more than $500,000 in unpaid reimbursements. The county board voted 4-1 to sell in October 2018. This is what downstream privatization looks like: the state privatizes a program, the private operators fail to pay providers, and a publicly owned community institution is lost.

Current Status

Audits and lawsuits continue. As of March 2026, the Iowa Senate has voted to codify managed care into state law. The House committee is reviewing the legislation. Parents and disability advocates oppose codification. Potential effective date January 1, 2027.

Medicaid privatization is the most studied case on this page. The stated justification was cost savings. No savings have been documented. The audited results include provider payment delays, care quality concerns, increased costs, and the loss of a century-old publicly owned facility. The program continues. This is relevant context for the CGI outsourcing discussion: once a public function is transferred to private management, reversing that decision has historically proven difficult regardless of documented outcomes.

documented Sources: Bleeding Heartland (April 2019); CBS2 Iowa auditor report; Managed Healthcare Executive; The Gazette (five-year review); Radio Iowa (March 2026); In the Public Interest (March 2018).

5. 2017 — House File 291: Collective Bargaining Restructured

February 2017

What Happened

In February 2017, the Iowa legislature enacted House File 291, fundamentally restructuring public-sector collective bargaining for non-public-safety employees — the majority of the state workforce.

The law restricted mandatory bargaining to base wages only, excluded insurance, subcontracting, staff reductions, and grievance procedures from the bargaining table, ended payroll deduction of union dues, and imposed recurring recertification elections requiring a majority of all eligible members — not just those voting — to vote yes. The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the law in a 4-3 decision in 2019.

Before and After

TopicBefore HF 291 (AFSCME 2015-2017)After HF 291 (2025-2027)
Mandatory Subjects of Bargaining Wages, insurance, hours, vacations, holidays, overtime, leaves, seniority, transfers, grievance procedures, supplemental pay, subcontracting Base wages only
Insurance Negotiated at the bargaining table Set unilaterally by employer
Subcontracting / Outsourcing Mandatory subject — union must be consulted Not a bargaining subject — employer decides unilaterally
Staff Reductions Mandatory subject — seniority and bumping rights negotiated Not a bargaining subject
Grievance Procedures Multi-step process with binding arbitration Not a mandatory bargaining subject
Union Dues Payroll deduction available No payroll deduction; members pay directly
Recertification Certification stands unless decertified by vote Recertification election required before each contract; majority of all eligible must vote yes

HF 291 did not privatize anything directly. Its structural effect was to remove subcontracting and staff reductions from mandatory bargaining subjects.

Before 2017, non-public-safety unions could bargain over subcontracting and staff reductions. After 2017, those topics were excluded by statute. The union cannot compel negotiation over the decision to outsource. It cannot grieve the elimination of positions. It cannot arbitrate the terms.

The stated purpose of HF 291 was to modernize labor relations. Whatever the intent, the documented effect is that subcontracting was removed from mandatory bargaining in 2017. Outsourcing under the CGI contract began in 2026.

documented Sources: Iowa Code Chapter 20; HF 291 (2017 Iowa Acts, ch. 2); DAS posted CBAs (2015-2017 and 2025-2027); The Gazette (February 2017); Iowa Supreme Court AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State (2019).

6. 2023 — The Guidehouse Report: Privatization Recommendations

April 2023

What Happened

On April 4, 2023, Governor Reynolds signed SF 514 — a nearly 1,600-page bill consolidating state agencies from 37 to 16 and eliminating scores of vacant positions. The bill was informed by a report from Guidehouse, a Virginia-based consulting firm the state paid nearly $1 million to produce.

The Guidehouse privatization recommendations

The Guidehouse report explicitly identified the following state entities as candidates for future privatization:

  • Iowa PBS
  • Iowa Communications Network
  • State Historical Museum
  • Volunteer Iowa

These are not speculative targets. They are documented recommendations from a paid consultant's report that informed enacted legislation. The report estimated nearly $215 million in savings over four years from its full set of recommendations.

The Iowa Communications Network

The Iowa Communications Network — an 8,600-mile, $320 million publicly built fiber optic network serving schools, hospitals, and government — has been a privatization target since 2011, when the legislature directed an RFP for its sale or lease. Operations are now partially outsourced (Fiberutilities Group provides technical staff). Seventy-nine percent of its internet traffic serves educational entities. The Guidehouse report put it back on the list.

What This Established

The Guidehouse report shows that privatization recommendations are not improvised. Specific state functions were identified as targets by a paid consultant, with projected savings figures, in a report that informed enacted legislation.

documented Sources: The Gazette (Guidehouse report; reorganization signed); Iowa Capital Dispatch (March 2023); Iowa Public Radio (April 2023); ICN strategic plan; Vice (ICN article).

7. 2025 — Prison Healthcare: The Test That Failed

2025

What Happened

The Iowa Department of Corrections issued a Request for Proposals to privatize medical and mental health care across all nine state prisons. More than 200 state-employed nurses, physicians, and mental health professionals were affected — approximately 300 total state employees. Workers would have lost IPERS and could have faced pay cuts.

What Happened Next

During the uncertainty of the RFP process, the department experienced a significant staff exodus — worsening the staffing shortages that were cited as justification for privatizing in the first place. AFSCME and other labor groups organized opposition, citing privatization failures in other states. The DOC ultimately accepted no proposals.

This is the only case on this page where the privatization effort was reversed. It failed not because of legal challenge or legislative intervention, but because the practical consequences — a staff exodus during the RFP process — made the original problem worse. The stated justification consumed itself.

This matters because it demonstrates that resistance to privatization can succeed when the costs of the transition become visible before the transition is complete.

documented Sources: Iowa Public Radio (November 2025); Iowa Capital Dispatch (July 2025); Nebraska Public Media; AFSCME; The Gazette.

8. 2025 — The DOGE Task Force: IPERS Recommendation

February – October 2025

What Happened

In February 2025, Governor Reynolds convened the Iowa DOGE Task Force, modeled on the federal program. The task force produced 45 recommendations.

The IPERS Recommendation

August 2025 — Initial Recommendation

A task force working group recommended eliminating IPERS for all new state hires and replacing it with a defined contribution program. This would have closed the defined-benefit pension to new entrants — a structural change that, over time, makes the system financially unsustainable as the contributor base shrinks while obligations to existing retirees remain.

October 2025 — Final Report

After opposition from ISEA, AFSCME, and other groups, the task force reversed course. Final report: IPERS remains intact, with a voluntary defined-contribution alternative. Current employees unaffected.

The DOGE Task Force recommended eliminating IPERS for new hires. That recommendation was withdrawn after organized opposition. The legislative path to closing the defined-benefit pension did not advance.

documented Sources: Iowa Public Radio (August 2025; October 2025); Iowa Capital Dispatch (September 2025; October 2025); Common Good Iowa; PSHRA; Governor's Office.

9. 2026 — The CGI Master Agreement

March 2026

On March 6, 2026, the State of Iowa signed Master Agreement #2026-BUS-7705 with CGI Technologies and Solutions, Inc. — a U.S. subsidiary of CGI Inc., a Canadian-headquartered multinational with 94,000 employees across 40+ countries — and executed the first Statement of Work to outsource the state's Enterprise Program Management Office.

The master agreement's scope is not limited to IT. Its operative language includes "staff augmentation" and "consulting services" with no restriction on which agencies can participate, no cap on the number of Statements of Work, and no ceiling on total spending. The contract's scope is analyzed in detail on The Contract page.

The full analysis of the contract language, scope, employee protections, and implications is documented on The Contract page.

Read the full contract analysis →

The documented record ends here.

The contract framework shows what it makes structurally possible.

Read The Trajectory →

10. Source Documents

Legislative and Government Sources

  • Iowa Code Chapter 20 — Public Employment Relations
  • HF 291 (2017 Iowa Acts, ch. 2) — Collective Bargaining Restructuring
  • SF 514 (2023) — Government Reorganization
  • SF 2385 (2024 Iowa Acts, ch. 1170) — PERB Elimination
  • Guidehouse consulting report (2023)
  • Iowa DOGE Task Force Final Report (October 2025)
  • DOC RFP for prison healthcare services (2025)
  • DAS collective bargaining agreements (2015-2017 and 2025-2027)
  • ICN FY2026-FY2028 Strategic Plan
  • Master Agreement #2026-BUS-7705
  • SOW #2026-SOW-7706

Media Sources

Related Pages on This Site

  • The Contract — Full analysis of the CGI master agreement and SOW
  • The Trajectory — What the contract framework allows, and where the documented record points
  • The Impact — The economic consequences for Iowa communities
  • Start Your Analysis — Search official salary records
  • Methodology — Calculation references and source documentation