Governor Chet Culver addresses the Iowa House and Senate this morning. Kathie Obradovich’s latest column emphasizes that Culver has broken with tradition this year by not submitting his draft 2011 budget to lawmakers before the big speech. (The governor submitted a draft budget for fiscal year 2010 in late December 2008.) Obradovich concludes that Culver needs to be in the “spotlight” without focusing on the budget.
She doesn’t mention other factors that seem likely to have delayed the budget draft. The Tax Credit Review Panel, which Culver appointed after the film tax credit fiasco, only just submitted its recommendations on January 8. I can’t imagine how the governor’s staff would put together a draft budget without knowing which tax credits deserve to be continued, scaled back or eliminated. Another possible source of delay is the State Government Reorganization Commission made up of Iowa House and Senate members, which voted on a list of cost-saving measures last month. Those measures would affect assumptions on state spending in the coming fiscal year.
Republican former governor Terry Branstad bragged to Obradovich that he always submitted his budgets early, adding that state legislators now face a shorter session without having the budget in hand.
However, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal told Radio Iowa this week that lawmakers will move a major bill on reorganizing state government before they start work on next year’s budget. It makes sense, because you can’t make accurate spending projections without knowing how state agencies will be restructured.
I’ll update this post later with more details of Culver’s speech.
UPDATE: The Burlington Hawk Eye posted the transcript. He asked legislators “to pass a supplemental appropriations bill early this session to restore some of the cuts to the Department of Public Defense” (Culver cut the current-year budget across the board in October.) For the fiscal 2011 budget, Culver asked lawmakers “to fully fund community college job training, and to adequately fund the Department of Workforce Development. And, to create more ‘green collar jobs,’ of the future, to fully fund the Iowa Power Fund.” Longer excerpts from the speech are after the jump.
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