OTTUMWA, IOWA -- It took until the last minute, but lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agreed to a budget just last week, just in-time before the deadline.
Both parties had to make compromises and State Representative Curt Hanson of Fairfield told KTVO this afternoon, that is what the public expects.
“I think that we made some really good compromises to move Iowa forward. I think that Iowans and people in the United States in general expect compromise in the end. We expect people to hold their ideals until that becomes impossible, and then to make some reasonable compromise and move forward,” said Hanson.
Iowa’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year is in the $6 billion range, and Hanson informed us that $1 billion of that is in cash reserves.
“I think that we have to keep this all in mind that Iowa is one of the best run states in the union. We have a very high level of reserve in cash funds; in-fact we have out of the $6 billion budget, about $1 billion in cash reserves. That is one-sixth, I think a lot of people would be happy if they had one-sixth cushion in their family budgets,” said Hanson.
Some areas that trouble Hanson with the budget focus on education and commercial property tax. Hanson is the Vice Chair of the Education Appropriations Subcommittee.
Hanson is troubled by the amount of money that current and future students are going to have to take out in student loans for college due to the funding that the Board of Regents received in this budget.
Hanson knows that these issues will have to be addressed in next year’s session.
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