Budget panels continue to cut state budgets

DES MOINES - The pain continued Tuesday as lawmakers, faced with declining state revenues, made budget cuts they say will result in reductions in services, program eliminations and the layoff of state employees.

Budget subcommittees pored over spreadsheets, reading the bad news in an overall budget that must be slashed nearly one-quarter of a billion dollars to bring spending in the 2010 fiscal year in line with revised revenue projections. State spending for all levels of education, health and human services, and justice systems felt the budget-cutter's knife.

The latest fiscal 2010 spending targets are $330 million below the current year budget that lawmakers passed in April 2008 before floods, tornadoes and national recession wreaked havoc on Iowa tax collections. The spending level for the year beginning July 1 will be about $95 million below the state's general fund spending level of two years ago.

The only good news appeared to be the federal stimulus funds that will be used to backfill some budget cuts. Applying those funds to the state's Medicaid budget means the Health and Human Services budget will grow despite a 12.8 percent cut across the rest of the budget. Sen. Jack Hatch, D-Des Moines, warned there will be painful change that will "affect the delivery of services to the most vulnerable people in our state."

The Department of Human Services staff is likely to shrink by the equivalent of 250 to 400 full-time positions. That will include social workers, case managers, direct service providers and administrators, Hatch said.

The department's overall budget will grow about $25 million, thanks to the federal stimulus finds, despite a $13 million cut in funds for field operations, hatch said.

Despite consensus that the cuts likely would result in cuts to clients, Republicans voted against the budget citing concerns about 2010

budget and the lack of a plan to deal with future budgets when the federal stimulus funds are not available, explained Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan.

"We did not have a discussion on a worst-case scenario if the economy does not improve," he said. "It's important this budget year to set the stage for what we might be facing in the years down the road."

He also was concerned that new programs were being created in the 2010 budget. "This is not the time for that to happen," he said.

Also on a party-line vote, a House-Senate education subcommittee approved a fiscal 2010 budget plan that would cut funding by 8.33 percent across the board to regent universities, community colleges and most education programs. The measure did not include K-12 foundation aid funding.

Minority Republicans did not offer any amendments but indicated they would like to see if federal stimulus money for education would fund one-time core curriculum implementation, allowing lawmakers to fund programs for empowerment areas, vocational technology, tuition grants, teacher shortage areas, nonpublic textbooks and others.

Majority Democrats rejected that approach, but said they would like to make a bipartisan appeal to Gov. Chet Culver for a "wish list" of educational funding needs should more discretionary use of federal dollars be available.

The justice system budget subcommittee approved a proposed fiscal 2010 appropriation that would cut $21.3 million from corrections, public safety, justice and judicial branch functions - including a 1.8 percent across-the-board reduction.

"Everybody's going to see some sort of cut," said committee co-chairman Rep. Todd Taylor, D-Cedar Rapids. "The way you see our priorities is by who we cut the least."

On a party-line vote, the panel agreed to save $3.3 million by eliminating the operating budget at a prison farm in Fort Madison and $1 million by ending the violator after-care programs at eight community-based corrections districts.

"We've only got so much money, so we're throwing things over the side," said Sen. Eugene Fraise, D-Fort Madison.

Subcommittee members shifted farm mediation duties from the Attorney General's office to the state Civil Rights Commission, closed the lodge at Clarinda, eliminated violator programs at Mitchellville and Newton prisons, and reduced a county confinement program.

"It's a tough job taking money away and not giving money to," said Rep. Lance Horbach, R-Tama.

The budget panel Tuesday chose not to change earned time provisions whereby non-violent offenders could be released earlier, and it ordered the state Department of Corrections to operate the 88-bed Luster Heights camp at full capacity.

Turning to the court system, subcommittee members approved language to waive reimbursements for judges and to allow judicial officers to take voluntary furlough days between now and June 30. The fiscal 2010 spending plan would reduce judicial branch funding by nearly $2.9 million - a deeper cut that Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, called "unacceptable."

Hogg warned the additional funding reduction for the courts risked the need for another 20 furlough days and employee layoffs in the fiscal year beginning next July 1. He said he only agreed to vote the funding package out of subcommittee because there was hope negotiations with Gov. Chet Culver and possible use of federal stimulus funds could restore some of the spending cuts.

"This is the first step in the process, not the end of it," Taylor said.