Iowa Legislature putting together $7.35 billion budget

DES MOINES - April showers fell on the Statehouse Monday as storm clouds formed under the Golden Dome.

Lawmakers began a push to adjournment by debating several parts of the fiscal 2017 $7.35 billion general fund budget. Majority and minority parties agreed there wasn't much to like in status quo budgets.

'We know this will create some stress within the court system … but it reflects the reality we are dealing with today,” floor manager Rep. Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, said about House File 2457, the $181.7 million Judicial Branch budget that funds the state court system. It was approved on a 53-44 – with two Republicans joining Democratic opposition -- and sent to the Senate.

However, progress ground to a halt when House majority Republicans responded to a Democratic amendment to prohibit 'adverse employment action” against employees of entities receiving state funding who disclose pay and benefit information to state agencies and officials. The GOP proposed changes in the state collective bargaining law similar to what provoked a debate that spanned two days last year.

At that point, Democrats went to caucus for more than three hours. They returned to caucus later in the evening after Republicans used parliamentary maneuvers to avoid a vote on pay equity amendments. Democrats proposed requiring all businesses contracting with the state to certify that they pay men and women the same for the same work.

Republicans contended pay equity has been state law since 2009 when Democrats were in the majority and passed legislation declaring it is the policy of the state to 'correct and, as rapidly as possible, to eliminate, discriminatory wage practices.”

However, Rep. Abby Finkenauer, D-Dubuque, said her amendment was more aggressive in addressing the continuing problem. In Iowa, women earn 77 cents for every $1 men earn, she said, and African American and Latino women earn 60 cent and 55 cents, respectively, for every $1 men earn for the same work.

'It's a more issue, an ethical issue and a working families issue,” Finkenauer said.

She called Republicans 'cowardly” for trying to avoid the vote.

Across the rotunda, the Iowa Senate voted 26-24 to approve a $50.8 million administration and regulations budget bill that would pare back existing general-fund programs by about $1.1 million in fiscal 2017. Senate File 2314, which goes to the House for consideration, also would appropriate $54.2 million from other funds for administrative and regulatory functions of state government.

Earlier Monday, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed its version of the fiscal 2017 budget bills dealing with $1 billion in higher education funding, justice systems and judicial branch programs, and a $378 million non-general fund measure to finance state Department of Transportation operations including salaries and highway projects from the state road use tax fund.

The measures cleared committee on separate 13-7, party-line votes.

'We had far more asks than we had money, but I believe the bill before you is fair,” said Sen. Brian Schoenjahn, D-Arlington, before senators approved the higher education funding measure.

Senators also voted 50-0 to strengthen efforts to collect delinquent court debt by making changes to aid county attorneys and a private collection agency in trying to collect past-due obligations. SF 2316 now moves to the House for consideration.

Court debt -- including unpaid fines, penalties, court costs, fees, forfeited bail and surcharges -- is deemed delinquent if it is not paid within 30 days after the date it is assessed. Other obligations collected by the courts include victim restitution, court-appointed attorney fees or expenses for a public defender with restitution for victims of crime at the head of the payment priority order.

According to a report by the Legislative Services Agency, outstanding court debt has grown considerably since fiscal 1998, when it stood at $143.4 million to $682.2 million at the end of fiscal 2015.

Back in the House, Worthan said HF 2458, the Justice Systems budget, was about more than dollars and cents. He called the $748.2 million package that that includes prisons, community-based corrections, the Iowa State Patrol and Department of Public Safety, the 'bedrock upon which democracy is built.”

'Without rule of law” provided through the public safety operations in the Justice Systems budget, Worthan said, 'there is no democracy.”

It was approved 59-38.