Iowa legislature cuts $118 million from this year’s budget

DES MOINES - The Iowa Legislature sent legislation to the governor Monday night to cut $117.8 million from the state budget during the last five months of the 2017 fiscal year.

The cuts weren't easy or something anyone wanted to do, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, said.

However, state departments have had several months to prepare for the cuts, he said before the House voted 58-38 to approve the cuts.

'I don't think this will have significant impacts because the departments have been made aware of this all the way back in October that this was a possibility so they should have been preparing themselves,” Grassley said. 'After December, it was clear that it was going to be.”

House Republicans were following the lead of the GOP-controlled Senate, which approved Senate File 130, https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=87&ba=sf130 a de-appropriations bill that included $88.2 million in targeted cuts and $25 million in fund transfers on a party-line vote last week.

The tweaks to the state's $7.2 billion general fund were necessary because of weaker than anticipated revenues, according to Gov. Terry Branstad. As farm commodity prices dropped over the past year, the state Revenue Estimating Conference reduced its projections three times, prompting Branstad to call for spending reductions.

Branstad and majority Republicans protected K-12 schools, Medicaid and property tax backfill payments to local government - about 75 percent of the budget - from the midyear budget correction.

That meant cuts of $8 million each to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University and a $2 million cut to the University of Northern Iowa. Other cuts included $3 million to community colleges, $5.5 million for the Department of Corrections, $4.5 million for the Department of Education, $3 million for the judicial branch, $1 million for public safety, and $11.5 million in executive-branch operations.

House Democrats sought to cut $62,640 from the governor's office budget and direct the money to the civil commitment unit for sexual predators in Cherokee.

Rep. Chris Hall, D-Sioux City, said Iowans expect everyone in state government to share in the pain of the budget cuts. He pointed out Branstad recommended the cut to his budget.

In the bill, Republicans called for cutting their daily expense money after 100 days rather than 110. Hall called for reducing that to 90 days so Iowans would see that legislators were leading by example.

The Legislature typically meets for 110 days in odd-numbered years and 100 days in election years. So cutting per diem expense money after 100 days is the norm, Rep. Mary Mascher, D-Iowa City, said.

Lawmakers, she said, should be willing to 'make a sacrifice in our own pay to fund some of the priorities people sent us here to support.”

There should be 'shared pain,” she said. 'Anything less is not the Iowa way.”

Both amendments failed, 38-57.

Another amendment called for a review of the millions of dollars of tax credits the state gives businesses.

Rep. Kirsten Running-Marquardt, D-Cedar Rapids, tried to protect the Cultural Trust Fund. SF 130 scoops the $6 million trust that was used to provide small grants, which had to be matched three-to-one, to arts and cultural organizations.

It was a tough choice, Branstad said, 'but is it better to lay people off?”

Running-Marquardt's amendment was ruled not germane.