Tentative agreement reached on Iowa HHS budget; transportation funding unresolved

DES MOINES - The list of must-do items for Iowa lawmakers to resolve before adjourning the 2016 legislative session - perhaps later today - is getting shorter, according to House Speaker Linda Upmeyer.

'There are fewer things up in the air, so I am perhaps even more optimistic today,” the Clear Lake Republican said Friday morning about the prospects of adjourning the session that was scheduled to end 10 days ago.

One impediment to adjournment - funding for family planning services - was removed when the Senate agreed to double the adoption tax credit to $5,000.

'Life issues are important to my caucus,” Health and Human Services Appropriations Chairman Dave Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant, said. In exchange, the House GOP will drop its insistence that the $1.836 billion health and human services budget not include taxpayer money going to women's health care providers in Iowa - most notably Planned Parenthood - that perform abortions.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, agreed the framework for an agreement on the human services budget is in place.

The other roadblock to adjournment is a $9.7 million line item for salary increases at the Department of Transportation.

'We're still discussing (transportation) but I would say we're getting closer,” Gronstal said. 'If those two fall, so will the gavel.”

Upmeyer also believes agreement can be found on the $370 million transportation budget. Lawmakers are researching the need for the $9.7 million DOT said is necessary to avoid as many as 100 layoffs next year. They want to know how it will be used as well as the impact on transportation projects if staffing levels are reduced, Upmeyer said. The Legislature has not approved a stand-alone salary bill in several years, so if the line item is strictly for salaries, lawmakers are unlikely to view it favorably, she said.

The reluctance to fund the DOT's request stems, in part, from reservations some lawmakers have about the 10-cent-a-gallon motor fuel tax increase the Legislature approved last year, Upmeyer said.

'The caucus, the chamber, I think, wants to be very sure that we are devoting every dollar that can be to the roads and bridges we committed to Iowans we are going to maintain, repair and, in some cases, build,” the speaker said. 'However, we recognize you need people to facilitate, to inspect, to design, to go through contracts in order for those things to take place.”

Despite their objections to funding family planning services at Planned Parenthood, House Republicans, who had a long, loud caucus Thursday evening, recognize that 'as much as we would like to expand the opportunities for women's health services in a much broader fashion, (Democrats) feel just as strongly they don't want to take that approach,” Upmeyer said.

House majority Republicans won't give up on their efforts to withhold funding from any agency that performs abortion, she said.

'For sure, that will be on the table the next time we have the conversation,” Upmeyer said. 'This is something that we feel strongly about, we absolutely want to fight for, but we also recognize that Iowans sent two different political parties in charge of two different chambers. We both have very strong opinions, but they are not the same opinion.”