Lawmakers see possibility for Iowa property tax relief legislation

DES MOINES – The 13

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week of a scheduled 16-week legislative session could be key to long-sought property tax reform.

“I'm keeping my fingers crossed we can come to some agreement,” Senate Ways & Means Chairman Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said Monday.

He and his House counterpart, Rep. Tom Sands, R-Wapello, plan to meet again this week to talk about their respective plans for reducing Iowans' property tax burdens.

Sands will be watching to see if the Senate approves and send its plan, Senate File 295, to the House. If it does, Sands expects to send it to a conference committee before the week is over. That would be further than property tax plans have gone in recent years.

“We got pretty close last year,” Bolkcom said. “The only problem was that the governor and Senate were negotiating and the House was not.”

That won't be a problem if the issue goes to a House-Senate conference committee, Sands said.

“It's easier to get 10 people to agree than 150,” he said.

Conference committee members are appointed by House and Senate leadership. The House team will have three Republicans and two Democrats and the Senate team will have three Democrats and two Republicans. If they can agree on a plan it goes to each chamber for a straight up-or-down vote. If approved, it would go to the governor.

The House GOP and Senate Democrats are in essentially the same place they were last year when they couldn't reach agreement.

The House plan, House File 609, would link commercial, residential and ag land taxes with industrial property mirroring commercial taxes. It also would provide dollar-for-dollar property tax relief by having the state pick up a larger share of K-12 school funding.

The Senate plan, Bolkcom said, “does better by 90 percent of taxpayers. At the end of day, we should do what's best for the most people.” It offers commercial property owners tax credits when annual state revenues grow by at least 4 percent from one year to the next.

That said, Bolkcom believes Democrats are interested in finding a way to merge the plans.

“It's time to set aside the differences,” he said. “How many more sessions can we have where we stand in our own corner?”

A subcommittee meeting on the bill is scheduled April 9.