TFI Capitol Report - February 4, 2018

State Capitol Report

Issue 1 |

February 4, 2018

TFI's Bill Tracker Upcoming Legislative Forums

THANK YOU to all those who were able to join us for the This Is Iowa Legislative Showcase at the Iowa Fairgrounds!!

The revised open air format was a great success, and much preferred by the 50 House Representatives and 26 Senators who attended, all of whom seemed to stay longer than they did under the old format. The organizing committee will compile feedback from the event, compare notes, and chart a course for 2019. If you have thoughts about the event, feel free to email them to [email protected] and we'll be sure they get passed along.

Legislative Session Update

Monday, February 5, marks Session Day 29 of the scheduled 100-day session. Four weeks down and ten to go before target adjournment.

Monday also marks caucus night across Iowa, so be sure to attend yours! The Legislature will not be working in Des Moines that day in order to enable legislators to attend their own caucuses. While this is not a presidential election year, the Governor and Lieutenant Governor's race will be on November's ballot along with all statewide elective offices (Attorney General, Auditor, Treasurer, Secretaries of State and of Agriculture), all four congressional races, the entire 100-member Iowa House, 25 seats of the 50-member Iowa Senate, and a number of local races.

First Funnel Coming

We are now two short weeks away from the first major deadline of the legislative session - the First Funnel on Friday, February 16, 2018. There are two "funnels" built into the Legislature's schedule every year that are essentially winnowing devices for eliminating any legislation that is not making forward progress. By the first funnel, any non-tax or spending bill must have been approved by the committee to which it was assigned or else it is dead for the year. There are still ways to advance a concept after the funnel deadline through amendment to another bill or leadership bills.

A byproduct of the coming first funnel deadline is that bills are being introduced at a furious pace right now. It is absolutely CRITICAL that you look through the bill list and keep checking it often to see if anything new pops up. The looming funnel deadline often means a subcommittee meeting may be scheduled on a bill right after the bill is introduced. In the days ahead, some bills will go from introduction to being voted out of committee within a number of hours.

FY 2018 De-Appropriations

While the coming funnel keeps the policy committees racing, the House, Senate and Governor continue to negotiate on the budget. Not the upcoming FY 2019 budget that begins July 1, 2018, but the current FY 2018. The Governor suggested a deappropriations package that totals around $27 million; the Senate has moved their version out of committee that cuts closer to $52 million. We are waiting to see what the House proposes. Whatever they end up with will need to be cut from the CURRENT FISCAL YEAR, which has less than five months remaining.

Why the big disparity between the Governor and the Senate's deappropriations bill? You may recall from last Fall that the fiscal year takes some time to close out. Fiscal Year 2017, despite ending at midnight on July 1, 2017, was not finalized until October 2017 due to the amount of time it takes to ensure receipts and expenditures made into and out of the State's multiple accounts gets recorded in the proper place. Senator Schneider, the Senate Appropriations Committee Chair, explained in committee that the Senate would like to cut enough from FY 2018 not just to balance the numbers, but to put 1/2 of one percent in the bank, just in case numbers continue to sour after the Legislature has left town for the year. Needing to return in October for a Special Legislative session to make transfers out of the State's emergency funds right before the November election is not ideal.

The Fiscal Year 2019 budget is expected to be equally contentious. However, work on that cannot really begin until after the March meeting of the Revenue Estimating Conference (REC), the date of which has not yet been set. The Legislature has to review the December 2017 estimate and the March 2018 estimate and then enact a budget that uses the lower of the two projected revenue numbers. We do not expect to see much about the FY 2019 budget until after those numbers are determined (other than the one percent - $32 million - increase for schools which was announced this week).

Legislative Alert - Tourism Funding

The single biggest issue of concern for TFI right now at the Capitol is how the deappropriations bill ends up treating tourism and economic development. We mentioned in the last Capitol Report that we heard very large cuts were coming. Sure enough, the Senate version of the deappropriations bill ( SF 2117) contains some staggering cuts to tourism and economic development resources, and these are cuts that would need to occur between NOW and June 30, 2018. These cuts include the following:

$396,039 from the IEDA Administration budget. This budget was cut by over $1 million just last year (about 7.49 %), down to $13.4M. This cut would take this line item down to about $13 million going into the FY 2019 budget cycle.
$150,000 from Regional Tourism Marketing at IEDA. This budget was capped last year at $900,000 from its normal level of $1.1 to $1.3 million. This cut would take this line item down to $750,000 going into the FY 2019 budget cycle.
$7 million from the High Quality Jobs Program at IEDA, leaving $8.9 million (a cut of 44%).
$7 million from the Skilled Worker and Job Creation Fund to the State's General Fund.

Please take a moment to contact your legislators and let them know your thoughts

To weigh in with Governor Reynolds, click HERE

To find out who your legislators are, click HERE

To find a list of the Senators, click HERE

To find a list of the Representatives, click HERE

Tourism Industry Issues

School Start Date

In the last edition, we made you aware of two bills that were introduced to alter the school start date. SF 2063 would allow schools to start on the Wednesday before the 23rd if the 23rd falls on a Thursday or Friday. SF 2064 would change the law to allow school to start on whichever is earlier, August 23rd or the Monday after the State Fair. TFI is registered in opposition to both of these bills.

On January 23rd, Senators Lofgren, Rozenboom and Hogg held a subcommittee meeting to discuss both bills. TFI spoke in opposition to both proposals. Despite this effort, the three Senators decided to approve SF 2064 in subcommittee. The Senate Education Committee must now take action on SF 2064 before the funnel deadline in order to keep the bill alive. If you haven't already, reach out to legislators and tell them to the leave the school start law unchanged.

DRAM Shop Insurance

Legislation to update Iowa's outdated DRAM Shop Insurance laws (SSB 1179 and HSB 594) is moving in both chambers. This legislation was introduced by legislators at the request of the Iowa Restaurant Association and is being supported by TFI. If you want more information about the issue, the Iowa Restaurant Association has a toolkit with information about the issue HERE. During the subcommittee meetings on these bills, the Iowa Insurance Commissioner shared some information about Iowa's DRAM Shop rates that can be viewed HERE.

Bills Being Tracked for TFI

This is a list of the bills being tracked for TFI. The online bill list is updated constantly, just go to http://www.ialobby.com/billtracker/tfi/

HF106

REAP Fund