Iowa Legislature adjourns 2016 session

DES MOINES - The split-control Legislature forged hard-fought bipartisan deals on transportation, Medicaid oversight and abortion funding Friday but walked away from water quality, medical cannabis and other vexing issues in adjourning their overtime 2016 session on its 110th calendar day.

Democrats in charge of the Iowa Senate and the GOP-led Iowa House put the finishing touches on a $7.35 billion spending plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1 that resolved a transportation funding dispute with a $4.85 million compromise, and found middle ground on legislative oversight of Iowa's privately managed Medicaid system but did not change taxpayer-funded family-planning efforts to achieve pro-life forces' goal of defunding Planned Parenthood.

'I do believe the end is near,” Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, told session-weary colleagues at the start of the afternoon push to adjournment. The final gavels of the 2016 session fell at 6:10 in the Iowa Senate and eight minutes later in the Iowa House.

House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights, closed out his first session as floor manager with a message to his children: ' To Owen, Noah and Sophia, I am finally able to answer the question they been asking a lot lately: Yes, Daddy is done at the Capitol.” Senators closed their work by giving a prolonged standing ovation to Sen. Joe Seng, D-Davenport, who is battling health issues, and his wife, Mary, who serves as his clerk.

The day's big breakthroughs came when negotiators resolved the $1.836 billion human services budget that included the Medicaid oversight and abortion-policy issues, and met halfway on a salary-funding dispute in the state's roughly $370 million transportation department budget. Disagreements also were hammered out on standings and justice-systems appropriations bills Friday.

'This chamber should always be proud of a session that results in a sound budget, good tax policy, and strategic investments,” House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said at the conclusion of her historic session as the Legislature's first female speaker.

Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, said House-Senate conferees agreed to fund $4.85 million of the $9.7 million the Iowa Department of Transportation says it needs to fund fiscal 2017 salaries. Without the funding, the department would have to cut more than 150 jobs in the coming fiscal year, according to the DOT's director.

House Republicans questioned whether the department truly would have to eliminate 150 jobs and balked at providing salary money after last year's passage of a 10-cent increase on the state gas tax. Upmeyer said most state agencies were being asked to absorb salary costs within the fiscal 2017 funding allotments.

'I wouldn't call it opposition (to the DOT salary funding),” said Rep. Dan Huseman, R-Aurelia. 'I would say there was a lot of angst because a little over six months after the governor signs a bill that increases the gas tax on Iowans the DOT comes back to the governor and asks for almost $10 million increase for salaries. The gas tax was sold on the idea that money was to be used on roads and bridges.

'Even though it is, I don't think the timing was very good and I think it was a little bit arrogant to come back and ask for that kind of money,” Huseman added, 'especially when the other budget subcommittee chairmen were given very little money to apply to salaries.”

Branstad said Thursday he hoped the funding issue could be resolved in a way that keeps transportation department projects running smoothly, especially after the gas tax increase created more road and bridge construction and repair projects.

'The governor has asked the House for this money to be fully extended to the $9.7 million. He's begged the speaker for it and she simply will not concede on this,” said McCoy, who predicted the DOT funding issue would become a fall campaign focus and legislators would be back in January to revisit the issue.

'I'm very disappointed,” said McCoy, who was floor manager of Senate File 2320, which won Senate approve 26-19 and House passage by a 52-34 vote. 'I'm very concerned there are going to be layoffs. I'm very concerned that we're going to impact public safety. This is in a year when you have a record amount of road projects going on in the state. You have all this new money flowing into the system and you don't have enough staff to go out and do that work that needs to be done.”

Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said the 86th General Assembly's second session was a mixed bag with legislators passing nearly $100 million in income tax relief for small businesses and farmers with a 'coupling” bill and enacting a new renewable biochemical production tax credit.

Dix was disappointed legislators failed to enact a photo identification requirement for voters to bolster integrity in Iowa's election system, require proof of legal residency to receive state benefits and amend the Constitution with a spending limitation to control the growth of government.

'As a result, we've seen again this year spending more than what we take in,” Dix said. 'We've seen now a $900 million surplus four years ago which will now be projected to less than $80 million as we go into next year. That's a problem as we look at long-term sustainability and predictability.”

Lawmakers exited the state Capitol Friday without addressing bills proposing to legalize consumer fireworks and fantasy sports games, address water-quality concerns, expand access to medical cannabis and future state aid to K-12 schools as required by law.

'This session will be known more what didn't happen than what did happen. There were several things we could have done that we didn't do,” said House Minority Leader Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown.

'We could have done better for public education. We could have done better for the 560,000 Iowans on Medicaid and the providers and their families than we did. We certainly could have done more for people with pain and very debilitating diseases that could have benefitted from the medical cannabis bill,” Smith added.

Lawmakers were dogged all session by a tough budget landscape made tighter by the coupling tax relief and past multi-year commitments and a $46 million downsizing in March of their available revenue to spend. Against that backdrop, Gronstal said Republicans and Democrats were able to agree on joint targets and assemble a budget geared toward meeting the needs of education, health care and other priorities.

'We provided some modest increases,” Gronstal said. 'Left to our own devices, we would have been more generous in terms of our support for both K-12 education and higher education.

'We leave here frustrated, but we also leave here with the knowledge that Iowans gave us Republicans in the House, Democrats in the Senate and a Republican in the governor's office and they say, ‘go get something done.' So that's what we've done this year,” said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, (D-Council Bluffs). 'Nobody got everything that they wanted. We're hopeful in the future we'll be able to do better.”

Branstad expressed disappointment that the Legislature was unable to address the water-quality issue - his top priority for the 2016 session, but he noted that sometimes 'big, bold” ideas take multiple years to resolve. He noted it took more than one session to get commercial property tax relief and education reforms accomplished.

Branstad said he was pleased the divided-control General Assembly was able to make reforms to the state's criminal justice system and he considered the renewable biochemical tax credit that he signed earlier this spring was the 2016 session's biggest achievement.