Vander Linden Capitol Update 3-26-2015
Vander Linden
School Funding
Legislative Democrats are not focused on student achievement or learning. They are focused on education spending. There is a difference and the facts clearly support that the Democrats top goal is increasing spending, not improving student achievement. There is no link between setting the supplemental state aid figure and rising student achievement. There is, however, a link between spending more than the state collects and forcing across the board cuts after the fact. House Republicans are not going to spend more than the state collects.
The first bill House Republicans approved in 2015 was school funding. Schools are getting the first bite of the apple when it comes to state spending. The problem is the apple, due to falling revenues, is not as big as many had hoped. Other important responsibilities such as funding Medicaid, economic development and public safety still have to receive funding in addition to education.
The House position continues the legislature’s trend of providing significant increases to the state’s K-12 system, bringing the 5 year total increase to over $570 million, a nearly 22% increase.
According to the Department of Education’s Allocation Summary documents, Iowa will spend $10,231 per student in FY 15. That means in classroom of 20, Iowa spends just over $200,000.
Spending more taxpayer money above the 1.25% level requires real reductions in other areas of the state budget like Medicaid or it requires an immediate tax increase. During debate in January on the SSA bill, House Democrats suggested raising business taxes and using money originally targeted for debt reduction to increase spending on education.
Senate Democrats have taken the position that the Legislature needs to enact a 4% increase now, regardless of the current state revenue numbers, and then figure out how to fund it later. These are same flawed practices former Gov. Culver used to get the state into a huge financial mess during his only term in office.
Income Tax Cut
FY 16 is obviously a tough budget year and Republicans are under no illusions that the income tax cut bill will make it to the Governor’s Desk. That should not stop legislators from discussing Iowa’s income taxes which have one of the highest top rates in the country. Income taxes have not been reduced since 1998. 17 years ago! It is a fact that after a brief dip in state revenues, they increased immediately.
Government spending advocates will always fight against a reduction in income tax rates. They will always obfuscate the facts to confuse Iowans and protect their government funding.
Every significant change in Iowa tax policy has taken years to achieve. The property tax discussion spanned over a decade. The fuel tax debate lasted nearly as long. We expect the fight to lower income taxes to take time as well. If Republicans do not force discussion on tax reductions, no one will.
The bill gives Iowans an option to file their taxes under the present 9 tier system or file under a flat rate system with a 5% rate. If the taxpayer chooses that flat rate, they give up all credits and deductions, with the exception of the standard deduction (which is increased over three times). This helps lower and middle income filers. Additionally, the bill exempts pension income from the state’s income tax. This helps retirees. Nobody sees a tax increase under this bill and there are people in each income level that see a decrease.
School Start Date Bill Moving
The House this week sent a school start date bill (SF 227) back to the Senate which approved the bill Wednesday but did not send it down to the Governor. Senator Gronstal filed a Motion to Reconsider. The bill passed by the House sets the earliest school start date at August 23rd, and sets up a process by which individual prekindergarten through 8th grade buildings can request waivers for year-round schools. This is in contrast to the Senate’s language of total local control on the issue.
The House-passed, bipartisan bill is an attempt to find a middle ground between the two sides of the issue, those who support total local control, and those who support a start after Labor Day in September. The Governor has made it clear that he will veto any bills that arrive at his desk that provide total local control on the issue. August 23rd, as passed by the House, appears to be a date that will satisfy most of those engaged in the debate.
The school start date has long been a controversial topic in Iowa, even prior to the current law’s enactment in 1985. Talk about what to do with the start is usually included with every legislature, but for the past 30 years no action has changed what current law requires. This past December, however, Governor Branstad issued a letter to the Director of the Department of Education, Brad Buck, that changed the conversation.
The current law, Iowa Code 279.10, subsection 1, requires that schools start no earlier than a day during the week in which September 1 falls. Subsection 4 then provides a waiver opportunity for schools that want to start sooner if they can prove that starting during the week of September 1 would “have a significant negative educational impact.” That language has been the crux of the problem.
The Department of Education has for years declared they have no guidance from the legislature to enforce that clause. As a result any requests from schools to start earlier than the statutory date have had their waivers automatically granted.
Branstad’s letter in December asked Director Buck to put an end to that practice. Schools can still receive waivers, but they should no longer be automatically granted.
The fight here doesn’t fall along partisan lines, as many issues before the legislature typically do, so the conversation is playing out a bit differently than others. Senate File 227 passed the House 71-28 with a mixture of Democrats and Republicans voting on both sides of the issue.
If a bill heads to the Governor’s desk that he refuses to sign, the state date will remain as it currently is: a day in the week of September 1st with waivers granted under the Department’s new strict guidelines.
