The latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Heartland

DES MOINES, IOWA -- A week in the Iowa Legislature...KTVO spoke with freshman State Senator Mark Chelgren (R-Ottumwa) by phone on Thursday...he is in Des Moines for his first week in the 84-th General Assembly.

Senator Chelgren said the initial order of business is learning about the tradition of the senate and listening to speeches...but he is looking forward to getting "real work done next week."

"I'm spending a lot of time at this point working on property tax relief, and I've got about 14 bills that I'm looking at submitting...and luckily for me a few other senators are submitting similar bills, so I'm trying to coordinate with them to make sure we don't have redundancy," Senator Chelgren said.

In the Iowa House, KTVO also spoke with State Representative Curt Hanson (D-Fairfield).    

Representative Hanson said one of the key issues remains funding pre-school education which could face some cuts in the next budget.

He said he hopes to find a compromise...adding that there will a public hearing on the issue next Tuesday night in the House of Representatives in Des Moines.