News from the Hill…
This week there was a balance of debate and committee meetings. But the number of bills being debated continues to be lower than normal, which can be a good thing. One of the biggest bills that the legislature debated this week was setting the school start date. Everybody seems to have an opinion on this bill that ranged from letting local school boards set the date to present law of not allowing schools to start the school before the week of September 1 without a waiver. The problem with the way the present law has been enforced is contrary to the original intent of the law by the legislature several years ago. The waiver system was clearly broken because all waivers requested were granted. Across this state schools were starting anywhere from the first week of August to Labor Day. The bill will change the school start date to no earlier than the 23rd of August. This seemed to be the most workable compromise between all of the different people of Iowa.
Revenue Estimating Conference…
Last Thursday afternoon I attended the Revenue Estimating Conference meeting to hear firsthand of their prediction for the upcoming fiscal outlook. While there are some positive signs they also shared lots of concerns of the Ag economy, Ag business, growing strength of the dollar and trade relations with China. Everybody knows this is going to be a couple of tough budget years, and it got a little tougher last week. While we have growth in the revenues, it will be modest growth next year. We are expecting that state revenue will exceed the current spending levels by $181 million for fiscal year 2016. At the same time the Legislative Services Agency has projected the growth of an additional $455 million in expenses. Much of the growth in expenditures come from laws that have been approved in previous sessions. This increase in expenditures would include the business property tax credit, some education funding, and backfill for local governments. Medicaid’s projected costs would exceed the new available revenue if adjustments are not made to the program. While K-12 funding will be increased, many other state programs and agencies will not. In fact, it should be very obvious that additional cuts will have to be made to provide the additional funds for our schools. So to provide even more money to schools, there would have to be severe cuts made elsewhere!
Ways and Means…
We had two committee meetings this week. The first meeting was a presentation on the local option sales tax (LOST). The purpose of this presentation was to inform the members of present law and how it has become unworkable in Polk and Dallas Counties. Many of the cities in the Metro area are contingent and overlap two counties.
The second committee meeting we passed out five bills. One of the bills was HSB 161 which legalizes the sale and use of fireworks. Presently Iowa is one of four states that do not permit the sale of fireworks. One of the other bills was HF 192 which came from Judiciary Committee. This bill makes some changes to the informal review process for a property owner who wants to appeal their assessment. The bill also moves the application date for the Business Property Tax Credit back to July 1 which is the same date of all other property tax credits. Both of these bills were amended in committee and will be redrafted with a new bill number. I voted for these two bills and they head to the house floor for debate.
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” – C. S. Lewis
For more information on these and other bills: www.legis.iowa.gov
Until next time,
Tom Sands