Iowa lawmakers move budget bills as they eye adjournment

DES MOINES — Iowa lawmakers continued to pass bills Thursday to fund the state’s budget for the next year, adding nearly $500,000 to the governor's office budget and funding myriad health care and agricultural programs.

Among the several budget bills moved to the floor by House lawmakers was an administration and regulation budget that funds several executive agencies, including the governor’s office.

The bill, Senate File 557, includes a $494,000 increase in funding to the governor’s office, which the office said was necessary to recruit and retain staff.

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“The Office of the Governor’s budget has been near stagnant for over 10 years and is significantly smaller than similarly-sized states like Arkansas, Connecticut, Oklahoma and Utah,” Reynolds’ spokesperson Kollin Crompton said. “Moreover, according to a 2021 Council on State Government report, Iowa is the 20th smallest state but tied for the 4th smallest governor’s office staff.”

The increase does not include any additional full-time employees.

Rep. Michael Bergan, R-Dorchester, the chair of the subcommittee, said the increase would allow the governor to determine proper compensation for her staff.

Democrats objected — both in the committee and in Senate debate earlier this week — to the lack of information about the increase and short time frame to review the change.

“We’d also like to know what that money is being used for,” Sen. Claire Celsi, a Democrat from West Des Moines, said Wednesday. “ … It’s our job to know what money is being spent on what, and if there’s an increase of half a million dollars, with no new hiring going with that, we have a right and an obligation to know that.”

After advancing out of the House Appropriations Committee, the bill is now eligible for final passage in the Iowa House.

Maternal health and child care

The Health and Human Services budget includes a few pieces of Gov. Kim Reynolds’ proposed sweeping maternal health care bill, but with less funding than the governor requested.

The bill — House Study Bill 248 — would increase funds to the More Options for Maternal Support Program, which funds centers that offer pregnancy support and discourage abortion, from $500,000 to $1 million. Reynolds’ proposal called for increasing funding to $2 million.

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The bill also would direct $560,000 to fund family medicine obstetrics fellowships in rural or underserved areas and increase adoption subsidies. Funding would be increased to mental health and substance abuse treatment and nursing homes.

The Senate passed an identical bill on Thursday.

Democrats argued the bill would underfund Iowa’s health care and child care priorities, and offered several amendments to boost funding for child care and Medicaid programs. One amendment would have extended postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months, a move enacted by other states this year.

Sen. Pam Jochum, a Democrat from Dubuque, said the bill fails Iowa’s most vulnerable, poorest citizens.

“We are not going to give them some additional help to pay for their child care?” she said. “Really? And then we look down our nose at them and try to make it sound like somehow they are lazy and they just don’t want to work.”

The Senate is considering a separate bill that would increase child care assistance to 160 percent of the federal poverty level while bumping up work requirements for the assistance.

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“I feel like we’ve got a good budget that we put together working with the House and Department of HHS to meet the needs of Iowans that’s sustainable for years to come,” Sen. Mark Costello, a Republican from Imogene, said.

Water quality and public lands

The agriculture, natural resources and environmental protection budget would divert $500,000 or one-third, whichever is highest, of the dollars from the Nutrient Research Center at Iowa State University to a water quality program in the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. The budget also eliminates a requirement the ISU center work with the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa.

Iowa deploys about 70 sensors each year on streams and rivers across the state that measure nitrate loads and concentration so observers can tell whether water treatment plant upgrades, wetland improvements and agricultural conservation practices are working to reduce pollution.

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The sensors send real-time data to the Iowa Water Quality Information System, which has an interactive map online. Two of the 52 sensors already out for the season are on Bloody Run Creek, a cold-water trout stream in northeast Iowa that runs near Supreme Beef, a 10,000-head cattle feedlot co-owned by Jared Walz, son-in-law to Sen. Dan Zumbach, R-Ryan, who proposed the funding cut.

The Gazette left a voicemail Wednesday for Zumbach to seek additional comment about the budget proposal, but Zumbach did not call back.

Threase Harms, a lobbyist for the Iowa Environmental Council, said stripping state funding for water monitoring erodes accountability for the state’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy to cut nitrogen and phosphorus loads in the Mississippi River that contribute to the hypoxic dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, an area of low oxygen that can kill fish and marine life beneath the surface waters.

Rep. Norlin Mommsen, a Republican from DeWitt who chaired a subcommittee hearing on the bill Thursday, said while Iowa State would not automatically receive funding for the Iowa Nutrient Research Fund, it could still apply for funding through the Water Quality Initiative Fund along with others.

Mommsen, too, said he believes there’s already adequate water quality monitoring being conducted by other state entities, including the Department of Agriculture, Department of Natural Resources and the Iowa Flood Center. He said shifting the funding will free up that money to be used for more water quality initiatives across the state.

The budget bill also would remove language from Iowa Code that says the state aspires to have 10 percent of its land under open space protection. It also allows the DNR to use up to $1 million from the Open Spaces Account for state park maintenance, repair and refurbishment.

Critics said that would deter land acquisition for recreation and conservation.

The budget also includes increased funding for foreign animal disease preparedness, meat and poultry inspectors, a new dairy innovation program, farmers with disabilities, and livestock disease research.

Democrats criticize budget process

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Democrats continued to criticize for its lack of transparency the manner in which majority Republicans have moved proposed budgets through the legislative process this session.

In the Senate, Republicans advanced budget bills through the committee levels without any current figures in them. That means those budget bills will not have any spending figures in them until they are amended during floor debate, which is beyond the point at which the public is able to provide input on legislation.

“I know that process isn’t that interesting to folks, but what it means is Iowans are being shut out of the budget-making process. These are Iowa taxpayer dollars. And they don't have a say in how they're being spent in any way, shape or form or a voice and that is unacceptable,” said Rep. Jennifer Konfrst, a Democrat from Windsor Heights and the Democrats’ leader in the House. “It’s simply unacceptable, and Iowans need to know they don’t have a voice and that’s not OK.”

Looking ahead

Iowa lawmakers are returning to the Capitol Monday for what is expected to be the last week of the session. Rep. Gary Mohr, R-Bettendorf, the Appropriations Committee Chair, said the remaining budget bills were still being negotiated, but he expects to hold hearings on them Monday.

The budget bills that have not been revealed yet include the education, justice system, economic development and standings budgets.

Erin Jordan of The Gazette contributed to this report.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com