April 24, 2014 The pieces of the budget puzzle are falling into place; the question now is if we can complete the puzzle before the weekend brings things to a halt. I am afraid that if we adjourn for the weekend it will take most of next week to finally bring the session to conclusion. After an extremely slow start on Monday and Tuesday activity has really picked up today. At least two of the budget bills will come out of conference committee by day’s end and may be approved on the floor of their initiating chamber. The education conference committee report has been approved in the House and is currently ready for floor debate in the Senate. The bill supplies a substantial increase in funding for community colleges that will help to keep tuition increases to a minimum. The Regents universities also received increased funding at a level that they have agreed will allow them to freeze tuition for another year. Both of these increases will be extremely important to Iowa families as they plan their budgets and to the state as we strive to provide a well-trained and motivated workforce to the businesses that see Iowa as a great place to start or expand. Provisions were also provided in the education bill to expand the funding for area education agencies, textbook support for non-public schools, the Iowa tuition grant, and the teacher leadership compensation program. The justice systems budget has been approved by conference committee and is ready for debate in the House. This budget increases funding for victim assistance grants and the Department of Corrections. In a rare occurrence we have decreased funding to the Civil Rights Department at their own request. The department director put in place by Governor Branstad has reduced a 13 month backlog of cases to no backlog at all and she has requested that the staff be reduced to reflect the increased efficiency and effectiveness. The centerpiece of the justice budget is the increased funding to the Department of Public Safety. The funds supplied to the department will allow them to add 30 additional state troopers while also replacing those who resign or retire. This will stop the decline from 455 troopers that began several years ago down to the current level of 350. By the end of FY2015 trooper levels should be back up around 380. This increase is extremely important to local law enforcement and sheriff’s departments as it removes some of the pressure of accident investigation and traffic enforcement from them. As I finish this on Thursday afternoon we are marking time here on the House floor as we work towards agreement with the Senate in several conference committees that are still active. The pace of action on the Senate floor has also been very slow this week as the majority party has had trouble maintaining their numbers available; therefore they have been reluctant to offer legislation on the floor. The question as we finish out the day is whether we adjourn tonight and go home for the weekend or stay for a final push through the weekend to final adjournment for the year.
