712 Digital Group - top

Another week starts at statehouse for legislators wrangling over budget

News

May 4th, 2015 by Ric Hanson

Legislators remain at odds over the main function of the Iowa General Assembly — coming up with a state spending plan. For example, the two parties have been wrangling since January over how much state aid to forward to Iowa’s public schools for the school year that begins in August. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs says Republicans are “unwilling to compromise.”

“It’s kind of messy for them,” Gronstal says. “Their leadership says: ‘We’ve drawn a line in the concrete…not the sand. We’ve drawn a line in the concrete and we’re not going to go over that.'” House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, a Republican from Hiawatha, says Republicans in the House are sticking with their original proposal which would forward an additional one-and-a-quarter percent in general state support to public school districts.

“The members of the House Republican Caucuses, 57 of us, have had extensive conversations with Iowans about balancing on-going revenue with on-going expenses,” Paulsen says, “and that’s exactly what they have asked us to do and that’s what they expect us to do.”

The latest report from the Legislative Services Agency indicates the state collected four-point-six percent more in taxes last month when compared to April of last year. Paulsen and his Republican colleagues in the House want to develop a budget plan that’s less than what Republican Governor Terry Branstad and Democrats in the Senate have proposed. Paulsen has said the ultimate goal is to return that money to Iowans in the form of a tax cut.

(Radio Iowa)