State budget talks progressing slowly

DES MOINES - House and Senate budget negotiators said Thursday they are making progress but still have not resolved how to allocate the final $23 million of uncommitted new money and reprioritize other areas of a $7.351 billion spending plan in hopes of adjourning by the April 19 target.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, reported having frank discussions aimed at resolving differences in a budget plan that is requiring Democrats who lower their initial funding target by nearly $50 million - part that already was achieved with a 2.25 percent compromise on state aid to K-12 schools next fiscal year.

'They have a hard time cutting things out of the budget and that's what they have to do,” Upmeyer told reporters after a second week of scuttle diplomacy between the split-control Legislature's two Statehouse chambers. The fiscal 2017 budget outlook tightened when revenue estimators lowered available tax collections about $46 million in March.

'The budget is just smaller so they have to decide where they're willing to take some things off,” the House speaker said. 'I think we're closer than we were a week ago, I think we are making progress so I'm going to continue to remain optimistic.”

Gronstal said there have been multiple meetings looking for common ground, but noted 'there are lots of sticking points.” He said Democrats are working to protect access to education and health care options while funding state functions that bolster the middle class.

'I had hoped we'd be close to targets. I don't know that we are,” Gronstal told reporters Thursday. 'I was hoping we would have agreement now. There have been frank discussions and there have been significant differences.”

Legislators were to receive Gov. Terry Branstad's proposed revisions to the fiscal 2017 budget he proposed in January after the March revenue estimates were revised downward under the state's spending limitation law.

In addition to the funding differences, Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, said a House-Senate impasse over legislation to increase oversight of private managed care organizations (MCOs) that began overseeing Iowa's Medicaid system on Friday likely will result in policy language being included in the health & human services budget bill that lands on Branstad's desk and be subject to his item veto.

Upmeyer told reporters Thursday that House Republicans were finalizing Medicaid oversight language addressing access, quality and outcomes that she expected would be made public next week and incorporated into the budget rather than move as a stand-alone policy measure.

The House speaker said she was not concerned the oversight provision might fall victim to a gubernatorial veto, saying 'I don't believe that the governor would want to do that if it's a legitimate oversight. We believe we'll have something that the governor will support.”