Senate challenges Branstad to veto Iowa transportation budget

DES MOINES – Senate Democrats' challenge of Gov. Terry Branstad's insistence on a two-year budget may be short-lived.

The Senate stripped the second year of a transportation budget from House File 642, making it a one-year budget, and sent it to the fifth-term republican governor to see if he's serious about his demand the Legislature begin preparing two-year budgets.

“I don't think the governor could have been more clear,” his spokesman, Tim Albrecht, said April 6 and predicted Branstad will send HF 642 back to the Senate promptly.

“I'll veto it, and I'll veto it, and I'll veto it until we get a two-year budget and get the state on the right financial track,” Branstad said at a Republican fundraiser over the weekend.

“He's not going back on his word,” Albrecht said.

The Senate approved a fiscal 2012 budget of $346 million that includes $298.4 million from the Primary Road Fund and $47.6 million from the Road Use Tax Fund, an overall decrease of $4.8 million, Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, said. It funds 3,109 FTEs, which is not a change from the current year.

The Senate stripped the fiscal 2013 appropriation of $350.9 - $47.6 million from the RUTF and $303.3 million from the Primary Road Fund with 3,109 FTEs.

HF 642 was approved without discussion on a party line vote, 26-24.

Albrecht explained Branstad is insisting on a two-year budget as a step toward getting out of “this budget mess we're in.” He said legislators have been passing one-year budgets, using one-time money to plug holes “and leave it to the next Legislature to fix the problem.”

This year, the governor sees a $540 million shortfall that they would have seen coming if they had been doing two-year budgets, Albrecht said.

Lawmakers could use the second year of a two-year budget cycle to pore over budgets, look at how departments and agencies spend their funds and find ways to save money, Albrecht said.

“Now they pass the budget, go home and start over the next year,” Albrecht said. “We want to make sure we are delivering the most we can from every dollar of Iowa taxpayers' money.”

The Senate also approved HF 389, a bill to allow the state to “collect money from bad people,” according to Sen. Jack Hatch, D-Des Moines. It funds investigative costs associated with the Medicare fraud control unit.

Also approved was HF 390 to direct the Department of Public Health to design a response strategy for Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. About 70,000 Iowans suffer from those diseases, Sen. Jim Seymour, R-Woodbine, said.