Rod Boshart, CR Gazette –
DES MOINES — Top lawmakers and Gov. Terry Branstad must agree on the size of the state’s budgetary pie this week before they can begin slicing up the fiscal 2013 funding pieces.
Leaders of the split-control Legislature enter what they hope will be the final two weeks of the 2012 session with virtually all the priority issues unresolved. Those items are linked to budget decisions, because major efforts to revamp property taxes, education and mental health service delivery have immediate and long-term cost implications for the overall state budget.
“We’re moving toward the end, but obviously there’s still more work to do,” said House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, who expected that most budget bills would be moved to House-Senate conference committees this week. There, tough bargaining will likely be needed to close a gap of $200 million to $300 million between the levels proposed by majority House Republicans and majority Senate Democrats. In between is Gov. Terry Branstad’s $6.244 billion spending plan.
“We’re going to get everything teed up here and we’re going figure out what the top number is and then we’re going to get it done,” said Paulsen. He said his caucus has proposed a 1 percent increase in spending for the fiscal year that begins July 1, while Branstad’s plan calls for more than 3 percent and Senate Democrats are seeking around 5 percent.
“We are closer to the governor than we are to the House Republicans,” said Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “… Even at our level, it’s still a pretty modest budget — and the governor’s is less than ours, and theirs is draconian.”
Unlike Paulsen and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, who expected the General Assembly could end its 2012 session work by the end of next week, Dvorsky said, “My guess would be that three weeks would be more realistic.”
