Governor Reynolds visits Osmundson Manufacturing Wednesday

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Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, left, took a brief tour of Osmundson Manufacturing Co. in Perry in 2018 with Osmundson's Chief Executive Officer Heather Bruce, right, and retiring Osmundson's President Doug Bruce, center.

Production paused on the floor of Osmundson Manufacturing Co. Wednesday morning when Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds visited the plant, spending about one tour touring the facility and talking to workers and managers.

Osmundson’s has been in business in Perry for 115 years. The current owner, Doug Bruce of West Des Moines, began working at the company in 1966. His daughter, Heather Bruce, will take over the leadership job in February 2019, the fifth generation of the family-owned business.

The 42,000-square-foot factory produces disc blades, and about 90 percent of the tillage tools are sold in the U.S. to companies such as John Deere and New Holland. Eighty workers are split between two shifts, the first shift from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. and third shift from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Osmundson’s has developed new steels and heat-treating techniques that give the company a green footprint, such as their use of a water-quench instead of a n oil quench. They are the only U.S. maker of high-quality disc, coulter, seeder and grain drill blades.

Reynolds said her father was a 40-year employee of John Deere, so she has an appreciation for Iowa manufacturing. She said she has toured many factories around the state and regularly sees the impact of the Moline, Ill.-based Deere and Co.

“There’s always green on the floor somewhere,” Reynolds said, an indication of the integral role of John Deere in the supply chain of Iowa’s small-scale manufacturers.

After a brief tour, Reynolds delivered some remarks to about 50 workers, managers and then took questions.

Charles Bartholow of Jefferson, a 16-year veteran of Osmundson’s, described his 102-year-old friend whose “health care provider hasn’t been paid in over five months. She’s bankrupting her family practically. She’s talking about selling her own vehicle so she can pay her help and buy food. Her situation’s pretty dire, and here she is 102 years old and needs 24-hour care. She can’t pay her help, but her help is too compassionate to just ditch her, you know. ”

Reynolds was blunt in acknowledging the problems in Iowa’s privatized system of managed care organizations (MCOs).

“It is abundantly clear that mistakes were made” in the roll out of the state’s privatization of Medicaid, the governor said. “But if anybody tells you we can go back, that’s not true. We just can’t. The old system is not sustainable. We don’t have the infrastructure there. It’s easy to tell you what you want to hear.”

The governor said she has heard enough stories from service providers who are not paid by the MCOs or whose reimbursements are months behind. Reynolds said she is determined to see the problem solved.

“I absolutely will not,” she said, “continue driving across the state and meeting with people who are providing these services to our loved ones and hear that they are not being paid for the services that they are providing. Done. Done.”

She said contracts with the MCOs were recently renegotiated and now provide an incentive for the MCOs to step up their rate of reimbursement.

“In the negotiations with the managed care providers, there’s financial penalties if they do not pay these providers in a timely manner,” Reynolds said, “and I’m talking 30 days on a clean claim. And if they don’t, then they’re going to have their money withheld.”

Reynolds also touted the tax cuts she signed into law during the last session of the Iowa Legislature and the effect they are having on the state’s economy.

She pointed to the economic strength of Iowa at full employment and said personal wage growth has increased in Iowa for three consecutive quarters, with a 4.5 percent jump in the fourth quarter of 2017, a 5 percent rise in the first quarter of 2018 and another 5.1 percent in the second quarter.

“It’s been lagging,” Reynolds said, “but we’ve finally, I think, turned a corner and are starting to see incomes rise, personal checks rise. It’s a reflection of the policies that we’ve put in place, the tax reform, regulatory reform, a growing economy, and now incomes are rising.”

If elected in the November general election, the governor said would continuing working to reduce taxes, bring more jobs to the state, reskill Iowans, address healthcare and connect rural Iowa.

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