Government Affairs Weekly Report - Week 13: April 3-6, 2017

by CBI Lobbyist Jeff Boeyink - Partner, LS2 Group
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Overview / Major Events

• Joint budget targets released by House and Senate Republicans (signals likely two week sprint to adjournment).
• Governor Branstad spends the week in Washington DC, preparing for his upcoming role as US Ambassador to China.
• Senate approves amended gun rights legislation.
• House approves amended bill on abortion restrictions.
• Drug testing measure heading to the Governor.

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Senator Schneider and Representative Grassley release joint budget targets
With the final signal that the work of the 2017 Session of the Iowa General Assembly is nearing a close, the respective Chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations committees released joint budget targets for the general fund on Wednesday. While this does NOT mean that every line item in those budgets is agreed to between the Chambers, it does mean the overall spending level for the upcoming fiscal year has been set and that goes a long way towards getting eventual final agreement.

The targets call for a total of $7.245 billion in general fund spending in FY18 (which begins on July 1, 2017), which is a slight reduction in spending from the current FY17 budget of $7.26 billion. With these targets, it appears the ONLY area of state spending that will increase significantly is for K-12 education (with a $40 million increase), while most other areas will see flat budgets or some spending reductions in the coming fiscal year.
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