The report evaluates Iowa's reorganization of mental health and mental retardation (MH/MR) services. Evaluation methods include a policy analysis of legislation, interviews with agency staff and consumer representatives, review of MH/MR Commission and Developmental Disabilities (DD) Council meetings, an opinion survey of county auditors, and review of county general allocation applications. Five topic areas are examined in terms of problem identification, legislative changes, and analysis of the standards or systems: (1) organization and administration of MH/MR/DD system; (2) coordination; (3) funding; (4) delivery of services; and (5) quality assurance. The final section reviews findings, including the findings that decision making and goal-setting functions within the system are strong while the monitoring and capacity-building functions are not; that there are marked differences in the degree of coordination experienced by different organizations within the system; that there appears to be uniformity of counties' prosperity tax burden and financial effort; and that deinstitutionalization is not significantly affected by the range of services available locally. Recommendations include improved data collection and management systems, and strategies for expanding the range of services to rural counties. (CL)