School Funding Discussion Heats Up Eggs And Issues

Sen. Tom Rielly at Saturday's Eggs and Issues where they discussed the proposed 10 cent gas tax increase

Oskaloosa, Iowa – One of the coldest days of the winter didn’t hurt attendance at Saturday’s Eggs and Issues. Four state-elected officials were on hand to answer questions from residents about pieces of legislation that are working their way out of the state house.

“Things are starting to pick up legislatively”, Tom Rielly (D- Oskaloosa) said of the current legislative session.

“Probably the biggest thing that happened in my world, we passed out of subcommittee an increase in the fuel tax and it would be phased in. It would be phased in, 5 cents in 2013 and then an additional 5 cents in 2014.” This is just one of the pieces of legislation Tom Rielly has been working on this year.

Questions over the proposed gas tax had residents asking if this money would make it to the rural portions of Iowa versus the population centers.

Rich Arnold (R-Russell) is retiring at the end of this legislative session

“Time 21 was created; it’s a new fund; it has constitution protection as well, but there was an adjustment how the allocation goes. Just for this one fund, it would go: 60% for the primary roads, 20 to counties, and 20 to cities. It’s that way until 225 million dollars into that fund. Once it hits 225, it reverts back to the old way”, was how Rielly explained how funds are allocated.

Rielly said he wanted to dispel a myth “out there”. “I’d vote for a gas tax, but it doesn’t go to the cities or counties. That’s a total lie; and if it is that way, we need to hire a new auditor.”

“We also passed out of subcommittee and full committee a piece of legislation I think is going to have a pretty good impact on Oskaloosa. Highway 63 is not on the industrial commercial network [CIN] and to most people, so what. Well, if your talking about economic development, that’s a big deal. So now we have passed out of subcommittee and the full committee that [which]would add miles to the commercial industrial network that would [help] Oskaloosa to become eligible to be added on to the commercial industrial network. What that does, it puts us in a higher priority for funding when they do the 5 year plan, and as the highway 63 coalition is working on a regional basis, this is big news.” Tom Rielly said this of the bill he pushed out of the Transportation Committee to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday.

Guy Vander Linden (R- Oskaloosa) takes questions from the audience on Saturday

Vander Linden is in approval of the CIN expansion. “I will be watching that carefully to make sure when it gets to the House, to do as much as we can to push that right on through”, was Vander Linden’s thoughts on getting the expansion in place for the CIN.

The property tax debate was also a major portion of Saturday’s discussion.

“We have not taken up commercial property tax bill yet on the floor. I would anticipate that over the next few weeks. The senates version of the commercial property tax reform would probably look, it is targeted towards main street businesses. We put a cap on the assessed valued of about $390,000 and then we try to back fill 100% of that so the squeeze doesn’t get put on the cities or counties to cut services or to shift taxes over to residential.”  Tom Rielly informed the group.

“The House has passed out of committee a single bill that combines the Governors proposals and the House Ways and Means proposals into a single bill. We have taken into consideration some of the concerns of the Senate; for instance, helping main street business. We do that right up front. Again, the House has moved in the direction of the Senate in hopes that we can come to some kind of agreement. There will soon be 3 property tax bills in their in basket over there. They haven’t taken up any of them yet.”- Guy also saying that he’s pleased to hear that senator Gronstol is ready to compromise and he looks forward to a move in that direction.

Education and it’s funding is always a topic of major discussion, and this weekends version of Eggs and Issues was no different than most.

Sen Paul McKinley (R- Chariton) will also be retiring at the end of this legislative session

“We did do an allowable growth bill through the Senate. The majority party wanted to increase spending 4%, and the governor and the house is going to go along with 2%. So that will be what we wind up doing.” – Paul McKinley (R- Chariton)

“Tom mentioned the 4% allowable growth for schools. What the senate passed in my opinion is a proposal. Unfortunately, they didn’t point out where the money’s going to come from and that’s always the rub. We’ll be looking at allowable growth when the time comes, but I don’t expect that 4% to go through the House.” – Guy Vander Linden (R- Oskaloosa)

A question from the audience towards Vander Linden over why, in her opinion, was the House so against going over 2% allowable growth, in response to the Senate voting a 4% allowable growth. “I’d like to know why the House is so against going above 2% for allowable growth. Last year was zero. That meant no new money for education and for funding children’s needs.”

“My problem with the senate bill is that it’s nothing but a proposal. It just says, let’s increase spending for the allowable growth 4%. It says nothing about where we’re going to get the money, and that becomes the bottom line in all of what we do up there. Nobody has anything against allowable growth as an item, but we don’t have the money. Furthermore, last year we decided to go to budgeting every two years, so we budgeted for 2012 and 2013. 2013’s going to be 2%. 2014 and 2015 we will deal with when it’s time to deal with that bi-annual budget.”

Eggs and Issues for February 11th, 2012 have left to right; Rich Arnold, Guy Vander Linden, Paul McKinley and Tom Rielly

Vander Linden said that there is concern that the federal government could possibly be looking at trimming it’s budget, and that the 6 billion dollars the state spends is matched by the feds; and with cuts possible in the future, back filling programs from the state might become a bigger issue in the future. He used an example of how the state is having to spend an additional 111 million dollars for medicaid that isn’t being funded by the federal government. “If they continue to cut back on things like that, we’re going to have to set some priorities. So it makes no sense to me that we should promise you 4% for education now, when we have no idea what’s going to happen 2 years from now.”

Vander Linden called the Senate’s bill “an empty promise”.

“It’s about as empty as the 2% allowable growth. Whether it’s the 2% or 4% allowable growth; we have the money now, we do. And this is the discussion we have every year with our superintendents, and we have with our teachers, and our school boards”, was Riellys response to Vander Linden.

Rielly said that, in the past there became points where funding for the schools became difficult and they, the state, couldn’t fund the allowable growth of 6% the superintendents were looking for. “Is 4% too much? Is 2% not enough?”, were Rielly’s thoughts on why the needs of allowable growth should go to a conference committee. He also said this is one reason why he doesn’t think they should have gone to two year budgeting. “It’s not predictable.”

Rielly believes that the way budgeting was was fine, “The only problem we had, we had a global meltdown. We went through almost a depression. We came through that probably like any other state in America. We’re not congress. I think we do a pretty darn good job of being stewards of our money.”

Even though Eggs and Issues went into overtime on the discussion, including an extended time spent with Oskaloosa Schools Superintendent Russ Reiter over how to fund our schools now and in the future, it was a productive meeting.