Capitol Update for April 2nd

Rep. Guy Vander Linden (R)

Rep. Guy Vander Linden (R)

How Much New Money Does Iowa Have to Spend in FY 2016?

When the Revenue Estimating Conference (REC) met in March, most Iowans learned that the committee had lowered the revenue estimate for the next budget year. The REC also issued a revised estimate for the current budget year, and some people are using those numbers to try and fool Iowans into believing the state has more new revenue than it actually does.

On March 19, the Revenue Estimating Conference projected that the state’s General Fund will take in $6.7674 billion through June 30, 2015. This was lower than their December 2014 estimate of $6.8571 billion, due to changes made this session in a bill aimed at matching Iowa’s tax with the Federal tax code.

To confuse Iowans and help their argument in favor of higher spending, legislative democrats are purposefully misleading Iowans. They take the latest estimate on final FY 15 revenue ($6.67 billion) and subtract it from the latest estimate on FY 16 revenue ($7.175 billion), that difference is 6 percent, or $408.1 million. A more realistic approach is to compare actual state spending last year of $6.995 billion to the new revenue estimate of $7.175 billion. The difference is 2.6 percent, or $180.9 million. It is simple math.

If Senate Democrats are intent on passing budget bills that spend $227 million more than what the state will actually have, it means they have other financially disastrous plans. They may have decided to spend the state’s ending balance and return the state to Chet Culver accounting by setting up across the board cuts in FY 2017, or they may have a plan to cut $227 million out of other programs like higher education, Medicaid, or public safety. Either way, Iowa taxpayers and Iowa schools will be the losers.

 

Posted by on Apr 2 2015. Filed under Local News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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