The Bottom Line

by Mike Breitbach, District 28 State Senator

This week has been very busy as we began moving bills through subcommittees and heard from various boards recommending changes to be made during this legislative session.
The most discussed topics this week were education, roads and bridges. Our children deserve a quality education and we are faced with a tightening budget. The Governor’s proposed budget would decrease our ending cash surplus to about $250 million. We just voted to “couple” our state tax code to the federal tax code which would decrease our estimated ending balance to $150 million after the next fiscal year.
Most of our schools are requesting we increase Supplemental State Aid by 6 percent, not the 1.25 percent proposed by the Governor.  These demands on our budget indicate we will be spending $750 million more than we take in over this year and next fiscal year. That is with Supplemental State Aid at the lower level.  
We are experiencing a shortfall of about $215 mil per year for transportation infrastructure. We will be addressing this in the next few weeks. We need an equitable way to pay for these costs.
This is just the start of the process and there will be a lot of difficult decisions to make.
I met with Kayleigh Koch and her mother this week for FFA Day at the Capitol. Over a thousand people came through the Capitol’s doors Tuesday for FFA Day. It’s great to see our youth so involved.
If you would like to schedule a time for me to meet with your local group please feel free to contact me to see if we can find a time that would work out.  
My Senate email is michael.breitbach@legis.iowa.gov or you can call me at 563-920-7399.