News from the Hill…
This week the floor action continued with limited committee time. The Commerce Committee met once, but there haven’t been any Senate Files that have come over to the House Commerce Committee to take action on. I expect some Senate Commerce Committee bills to arrive, but fewer than years past. The new Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee is more of an anti-commerce committee chair. I served under her in the House two years when I was in the minority.
Collective Bargaining Arbitration…
One of the bills debated this week on the Iowa House Floor was HF 549. This bill makes changes to binding arbitration in regards to collective bargaining for employees of schools and Area Education Agencies. I have always believed that making changes on binding arbitration should be done with great care and caution. The delicate balance between employer and employee needs to be protected. Neither side should have an edge in the law over the other. People can disagree on who may have the edge, but changes in the law should always be made only to protect the integrity of the balance.
Presently if there is an impasse between the administration and employees one party can choose to go to binding arbitration. The Arbitrator then reviews the information and has to choose one side or the other. They do not have the flexibility to choose somewhere in between. The bill makes the change and gives them the authority to choose one side or the other, or somewhere in between. The bill also prohibits the arbitrator from factoring in the public employer’s ability to levy taxes when rendering a decision. The arbitrator is required to compare wages, hours, and conditions of employment to those doing comparable work in the private sector. Currently the law only requires the comparison of public sector workers. I have never worked where there is binding arbitration, so maybe my perspective is different than those who have or do. But these changes seemed minor and made common sense, the minority party seemed to greatly disagree. The debate started early Tuesday afternoon and finally around 10:00 Tuesday night we recessed until 8:00 am Wednesday morning. Wednesday we started at 8:00 and finished debate later that day around noon. The bill passed along party lines with 56 voting aye, 41 voting nay and 3 absent or not voting. I voted for the bill.
Revenue Growth or Decline…
The Revenue Estimating Conference (REC) meets Thursday at 1:00 to give us the March update on the economic picture for the state of Iowa Revenues. By Iowa law if the estimate comes in under the December estimate we need to use the lower of the two estimates for budgeting for 2016. If the estimate comes in higher than December we need to continue to base our budget off of the December estimate. Hopefully once the estimate is made today the log jam on school funding can be settled. School Administrators, school board members and school employees are angry at the state for not setting this number yet. To be perfectly honest they have every right to be disappointed in the delay. The schools are being forced to set their budgets without knowing for sure what the revenue stream will be. While everybody seems to be blaming someone else for the stalemate, it is past time to decide and move on. I hope that today’s meeting of the REC bust up the log jam.
“The most terrifying words om the English language are: I’m from the governement and I’m here to help.” – Ronald Reagan
For more information on these and other bills: www.legis.iowa.gov
Until next time,
Tom Sands
This weekend’s forums: Saturday, March 21st
7:15-8:30 AM Burlington/West Burlington Chamber Members
9:15-10:30 AM West Burlington City Hall, West Burlington