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April 8, 2016 | Week 13 Summary

Adjournment in the Future?

Your Guess is as Good as Ours.

Week thirteen of the 2016 Iowa Legislative session has been completed and much like the last two weeks, very little action taking place at the Capitol. There have been a few minor debates but primarily, lawmakers are sitting around and waiting.

State Budget.

The House and Senate both have been in session only intermittently as leadership in both houses have been busy trying to work out the intricacies of the state's $7.4 billion budget. There are 10 individual budget bills the legislature must pass, and to date not one of them has been debated. With funding running out on April 19, the legislature is going to have to pick up the pace so they can all go home and start campaigning again.

On Wednesday, House Republicans and Senate Democrats reached an agreement on the funding levels for the FY 2017 budget. The Legislature is limited to spending $7.351 billion out of the General Fund under the state's expenditure limitation law. The budget levels include the additional funding already authorized by the FY 2017 Supplemental School Aid bills, which increased school funding by 2.25 percent. Most lawmakers believe this could have been done two or three weeks ago.

The Governor is still very committed to water quality and he continues to ask lawmakers to fins a sustainable, long-term funding source to invest in water quality initiatives across the State of Iowa. Some insiders believe that this is what may prolong the adjournment of the session since this is a top priority for the Governor and the House and Senate plans are quite different.

The House has passed legislation that would begin to fund a new water quality program from the sales tax on drinking water and use of the state's infrastructure fund. Although, it passed 66-33 in the House, the Senate does not appear willing to accept the proposal.

Education.

Several IMTA members have asked for a summary on the Education and we believe that the summary provided by Representative Mike Sexton in his weekly newsletter explains it the best.

After weeks of negotiations and a new March revenue estimate, the agreement is a 2.25% per pupil increase ($6,446 to $6,591), falling in the middle of earlier proposals. At the table for discussion was the Senate's proposed 4% increase ($6,704) and the House's proposed 2% increase ($6,575). The Governor's proposal earlier this year was for 2.45% ($6,604).

Schools will finally have certainty to approve their budgets as agreement has been reached on next school year's education funding. This will be the sixth year in a row that schools receive a funding increase.

This agreement will provide local K-12 schools with an additional $153.8 million. This represents 87% of new spending in this year's budget.

While much of the focus of school funding is on Supplemental State Aid (SSA) and the percent increase that the legislature sets every year, there is more to school funding than the 2.25% increase approved last month. The increase put the State Cost per Pupil (SCPP) at $6,591. However, this only outlines the amount generated through the School Funding Formula which is directly impacted by the SSA percent and dictates how much the state spends out of the general fund.

There are a number of local option levies and additional dollars thrown in by the federal government which increase the revenue school districts receive from the $6,591 SCPP to $10,504 per pupil for the FY16 (2015/16) school year.

This year also marks the first time that total funding to districts, including state funds, local property taxes, and federal funds, exceeds $5 billion. $4.905 billion of that amount is state and local funds (97.12%) while the remaining $145.4 million is from federal funding (2.88%).

2016 IMTA Leadership Class.

Kick-Off at the Capitol.

The 2016 IMTA Leadership Class has been named and they kicked off their activities this week by spending time at the Iowa State Capitol. As is tradition, the group met with Governor Terry Branstad as well as legislative leaders from both the Iowa House and Senate.

Members of the 2016 Leadership class are:

Mitch Amhof Amhof Trucking, Inc.	Kyle Trusty BTI Special Commodities, Inc.	Jason Ross Cross Dillon Tire
Brenda McNealey Decker Truck Line, Inc.	Jim Walstrom Des Moines Truck Brokers	Melinda Anderson Ennis Corp.
Jen Priest Great West Casualty Company	Grace Jensen Hanifen Co. Inc.	Michael Jelinske Hirschbach Motor Lines, Inc.
Nick Finkenauer McGowen, Hurst, Clark & Smith	Scott Ferris MHC Kenworth	Jim Anderson Midwest Wheel Companies
Dustin Adams Niece Trucking	Ken Groetsch O'Halloran International, Inc.	Devin Cipperly Panama Transfer
Josh Schmitz Panama Transfer	Ryan Frederiksen Ruan Transportation	Allison Meiners Ruan Transportation
Corey Vesely Warren Transport	Darren Robinette West Side Transport