Governor Terry Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds have asked legislators to set aside 150-thousand dollars to cover “transition” expenses when Reynolds takes over as governor after Branstad resigns to become U-S ambassador to China. Senator Tod Bowman, a Democrat from Maquoketa, says that “seems excessive.””While the state’s in the middle of budget mess, it’s extravagant and unnecessary to move the lieutenant governor from one room of the capitol to the other,” Bowman said.

He added “$150,000 may not seem like a lot to you, but the median income for a family in the state of Iowa is $55,000. That’s almost taking three families’ total wealth for the year.” But Senator Charles Schneider, a Republican from West Des Moines, says much of that 150-thousand dollars may cover exit packages for departing Branstad staff. “For example, the governor’s office will have to cash out vacation time and sick time and other time off and there are other expenses that go along with it, too,” Schneider says.

The Branstad/Reynolds office budget is about two-point-two MILLION dollars, with about two dozen authorized full-time staffing positions. “Anytime there’s a transition, there will be staff turnover,” Reynolds says. “They’ll be looking at other opportunities and so I want the flexibility to address that.” Reynolds isn’t  “Whenever there’s a transition, you have some staff turn-over, you have technology, there’s some additional potential travel, supplies,” she says.

A 150-thousand dollar transition budget would be six times larger than the budget Republican legislators established in 1998 for Democratic Governor Tom Vilsack’s transition. Eight years later, Vilsack and legislators provided a 170-thousand dollar budget for the transition when Democrat Chet Culver took over as governor. Democrats in the Senate like Matt McCoy of Des Moines tried to erase the 150-thousand dollars for the Branstad-to-Reynolds transition from a budget bill.
“I think this is unnecessary,” McCoy says. “I think it’s wasteful.”

Senate Republicans like Schneider prevailed and the money is included in a big budget bill that cleared the senate late Thursday afternoon.”It does not seem like an unreasonable request to us in light of previous circumstances and prior precedent,” Schneider said.

Republican legislators have most of their work done on the ENTIRE state budget for next year. There are just a few decisions left before lawmakers can end the 2017 legislative session. That may happen sometime today (Friday) or tomorrow (Saturday).

(Radio Iowa)