Iowa courthouses will close an additional eight days between now and June 30 if the $3.8-million cut to the judicial system approved Thursday by the Iowa House is also approved by the Senate and signed by the governor, State Court Administrator David Boyd told a panel of lawmakers this week.

That's twice a month, or once a pay period, Boyd told the legislature's joint justice-system budget subcommittee. Beginning in March, the courts would close on each day that the state's 1,600 clerks of court and other judicial employees take a furlough, or unpaid day off, for a savings of $335,000 a day.

I just wanted to provide an insight from a family that left Davenport because of the schools. I grew up in Bettendorf, moved to Davenport, and after having children moved them to Geneseo, as I refused to put them in the Davenport school system. As a parent, I would not subject my children to 13 years in that school system to earn money for college. Not only is the crime rate in that school system high, but the schools do not adequately prepare the kids for college.

The Iowa House was expected to approve Friday a controversial bill that would require contractors to pay workers the same hourly wages and benefits on public projects as they would on private-sector projects in the area. But during the vote, the Democratic majority fell one vote short of the 51 votes it needed for passage and left the vote open through the weekend in hopes one of the five Democrats who voted against the bill could be convinced to switch to a "yes" vote.

In what officials called the longest vote in Iowa Statehouse history, House Speaker Pat Murphy at 1:09 p.m. Monday closed the voting machine on the prevailing wage bill after 2 days, 19 hours and 14 minutes, declaring the bill had lost. The vote was 50-48, one vote short of passage. But then House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, switched his vote to "no" -- a procedural move that will allow him to bring the bill up for reconsideration later this session. So the final vote stood at 49-49.

Backers said the bill was aimed at helping middle-class families in Iowa.