Iowa GOP lining up budgets for end-of-session push

DES MOINES - Lawmakers plodded through austere budget bills Thursday that few liked, given the state's tight revenue situation, in hopes of positioning themselves to make a run at adjourning their 2017 session next week.

It will be a 'checkbook budget,” according to Justice Systems Appropriations Chairman Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, who presented a pair of status quo budgets for courts and corrections as part of the overall fiscal 2018 spending plan.

'We don't run on credit cards here ... when the piggy bank is empty,” he said.

It's a matter of accepting the reality of the state revenue situation, said Gov. Terry Branstad, who has been in negotiations with lawmakers who are crafting a $7.245 billion budget that spends $38 million less than he proposed.

'It's not what we want it to be, but it's what we need to do to comply with our law that we can only spend 99 percent of projected revenue,” he said Thursday. 'It's never easy to have to make the kind of reductions, but these are thoughtful reductions.”

That didn't mean Health and Human Resources Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Dave Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant, had to like it. And he didn't.

The proposed $1.766 billion health and human services budget is 1.5 percent - or $27.9 million - less than current year spending. However, it will be $70 million less than the fiscal 2017 budget before the governor vetoed funds and the Legislature had to make midyear budget cuts, Rep. Lisa Heddens, D-Ames, said.

When the governor cut money in the past, Heaton said, he was able to negotiate and find it somewhere else.

'But this time, we got ourselves in a box,” Heaton said. 'The revenues are flat. We had to deappropriate. Then we had to borrow. There's nowhere to go.

'I don't like what I'm doing,” Heaton told the committee.

He wasn't alone. Pointing to the 'huge hit” the Department of Public Health was taking, Rep. John Forbes, D-Des Moines, wondered whether the state would have the resources to respond to a pandemic or widespread flu outbreak.

'None of us are getting what we want,” said Rep. Rob Taylor, R-West Des Moines, who pledged to 'fight tooth-and-nail” to restore funding for a medical residency program next year.

Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, called it 'unconscionable” to leave $3 million in family planning funds on the table when the Legislature is cutting the budget.

'Seventy-seven percent of Iowans believe we should be financing family planning through groups like Planned Parenthood,” she said, referring to an Iowa Poll.

Republicans set aside $3 million in state money to pay for contraceptives, exams and other reproductive health services for Medicaid patients in Iowa. They are rejecting federal dollars in order to avoid funding services at Planned Parenthood clinics because that agency also provides abortions.

The cuts will be disruptive, according to Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, who said the Legislature is faced with 'dismal budget bills that just keep whittling away at things that people want us to provide. There's a litany of things that are getting cut.”

Throughout the day and evening Thursday, committees approved budget after budget with little or no spending increases and, in most cases, more cuts than increases.

Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 12-7 Thursday to separately pass budget bills setting funding levels for education, justice systems, the courts and agriculture and natural resources programs in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

'I think from what we were given this is a very good budget bill,” Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa, told committee members after walking through a series of cuts to the Iowa Attorney General's Office, corrections, crime victim services and other justice system programs. Later, in laying out funding for the court system, he said, 'This is the first step for us to try to stop the bleeding.”

The same scenarios played out as senators dealt with cuts to higher education, resource enhancement and protection (REAP), state parks and Iowa State University's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

'It's the poor farm,” said Bolkcom, the committee's ranking Democrat. 'The state has a budget crisis underway. We have revenue coming in, and we're broke. We have no money to support the basic things people expect from us - public safety, education, health care, keep state parks open - the state is struggling to do that.”

The ag and natural resources budget represents just six-tenths of 1 percent of the budget, according to Rep. Bruce Bearinger, D-Oelwein, but it was cut $2.3 million to $38.8 million. It included a $4 million cut to Resource Enhancement and Protection Fund and a $2.4 million cut to the Environment First Fund.

Rep. Todd Taylor, D-Cedar Rapids, called the budgets 'appalling.”

It appeared to him that majority Republicans were 'counting on their gutting of collective bargaining to bail us out.” Early in the session, the GOP majority made major changes to the collective bargaining law governing how and what public employees can bargain for in contract negotiations.

The House Appropriations Committee approved $73.9 million in changes to the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund budget. The overall RIIF appropriation will be $180.7 million in fiscal 2018.

Significant changes in the RIIF budget included reducing the governor's $9.5 million recommendation for water quality to $5.2 million. That was necessary to bump up spending on major maintenance from the $2 million Branstad proposed to $12 million, said Rep. Dan Huseman, R-Cherokee.

'I appreciate that you increased major maintenance, but it's woefully inadequate,” Rep. Mary Mascher, D-Iowa City, said. 'We have got to do a better job of taking care of our own buildings.” Delaying maintenance only makes maintenance more expensive, she said.