Iowa House and Senate Republicans could support legislation requiring lawmakers to contribute to the cost of their state-provided health-care benefits, party leaders told the Des Moines Register’s editorial board this morning.
The health-care packages now offered by the state— in which most employees, including legislators, are not required to make contributions from their salaries — are “out of touch” with the plans available to average Iowans and prompt difficult conversations between lawmakers and their constituents, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said.
For that reason, he said, the status quo is ripe for change.
“We think we should be contributing more to our monthly premium,” Paulsen said, noting bills passed in last year’s session requiring state employees to pay $100 a month toward their health-insurance bills.
But, leaders and legislative staff added, no specific proposals requiring lawmakers to pay a share of their health-care premiums have been introduced. If the issue is to advance, it more likely would happen through changes to existing bills requiring contributions from a wider swath of state employees.
In the hour-long morning meeting with Register reporters and editors, Paulsen, House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, R-Garner, and Senate Minority Leader Jerry Behn, R-Boone, reiterated their party’s commitment to job-creation and economic-development efforts primarily focused on state fiscal prudence and commercial and industrial property tax reform.
“We’re focused on the things we’ve been talking about now for several years: jobs, the economy, spending and taxes,” Paulsen said.
But they also described several specific points of policy emphasis for the legislative session that began this week and weighed in on a handful of other issues:
* Upmeyer and Paulsen reiterated the legislature’s commitment to providing state resources for a revamped system of mental health services, but said it may be several years before the structure and funding of that new system is fully developed.
They also declined to say how much might be devoted to the reform in the coming year, or whether lawmakers would be willing to commit more than the roughly $18 million included in the governor’s budget proposal presented this week. Branstad’s own human services director has suggested $42 million is necessary to begin implementing reforms next year.
“The expectation is also that we’re going to make progress in 2012, we’ll be back in 2013, and it may be 2014 or 2015 before the last bill is made on the substantive changes of what this final product looks like,” Paulsen said of mental-health reform. “This is a really big project.”
* Legislative Republicans’ enthusiasm for economic development efforts apparently does not extend to a proposal from Gov. Terry Branstad to create a $25-million business incentives fund offering loans and grants to businesses that bring new jobs to Iowa.
The proposal, in which the state’s economic development authority could potentially provide financial aid to specific businesses, smacks of “picking winners and losers” — something fiscally conservative Republicans generally oppose, Paulsen said.
“We need to look at his proposal, see what’s in there, see if he’s got something new or unique,” he said of the Branstad’s plan. “But that one probably didn’t have as much enthusiasm as the others.”
* Amidst all the looming legislative debate over commercial property tax reform may also come a discussion of changes to the state’s tax-increment finance law, the lawmakers said.
TIF, as the economic-development tool is known, allows cities to divert the taxes generated from a new building project to pay for costs related to the project’s development. The technique has been immensely popular in Iowa and across the nation in recent years, although cities have been criticized for applying it too liberally or using it to lure businesses away from other jurisdictions.
Controversy over TIF erupted last fall in eastern Iowa when the city of Coralville awarded a large TIF for the development of a Von Maur department store — a move expected to prompt the closure of an existing Von Maur in neighboring Iowa City.
“I think there will absolutely be TIF reform this year,” Paulsen said, although he cautioned that much work remained before the House, Senate and governor were ready to agree to a bill. “I do not envision a scenario right now where there isn’t a TIF reform proposal, quite frankly, out of both chambers.”
Any legislation that moves forward will restrict cities’ ability to use TIF, Paulsen said, and “rein in what many legislators view as abuses” — chief among them the Coralville example.
* On the subject of property tax reform, Paulsen mostly rejected the notion that cities — including Des Moines in particular — should be “held harmless” from potential losses of revenue caused by efforts to reduce commercial property tax burdens.
Taxpayers are just as burdened by taxes and dissatisfied by services at the local level of government as they are at the state and federal level, he said.
“They want every single layer of government to address what’s going on with their dollars,” Paulsen said. “I fail to see why (cities) think they should be exempt from that.”
The speaker said he as specifically “insensitive” to arguments that the city of Des Moines faces a particular hardship in property tax reform since so much of its property is owned by governments and non-profits that don’t pay taxes.
“That’s is largely a hollow argument because a whole lot of those properties that aren’t paying taxes are also driving everybody else here,” he said. “That’s just kind of a cost of doing business from my perspective.”
* Referencing controversies over redistricting for political offices in Polk and Linn counties, Paulsen said he could see advantages to adopting a non-partisan system for the local level like that in place for legislative and congressional redistricting, but said no legislative efforts were currently underway to do so.
* Turning to the 2012 elections, Paulsen acknowledged that third-party campaign committees and interest groups are exerting more — and detrimental — influence over state-level political races, but said no legislation was likely to move to address them.
Tags: iowa house, Iowa Legislature, Iowa Senate, Jerry Behn, Kraig Paulsen, Linda Upmeyer, property taxes, TIF
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