I was lawmakers have gone home.

What was accomplished during this session that will impact people for years to come.

A closer look on the city's.

Iowa lawmakers finished their 100 day session in 123 days.

It's a session where a $9.4 billion budget was approved, and eminent domain bill was passed.

It awaits the governor's action and civil rights protections were removed in continued actions focused on transgender people.

We talked with Bettendorf Republican Representative Gary Moore, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Representative Moore, thank you for joining us.

123 days.

That's 23 more than you're supposed to.

What took so long to get everything wrapped up?

Well, every year, the same year, there's really no reason why it has to take 123 days.

But there are some issues every year that are very, divisive where there's people on both sides of the issue.

Those tend to get left until the 11th hour.

And then it's hurry up, let's get it done.

And we work through the night.

And that happened again this year.

Well and it's always the, the budget tends to always be even in Illinois and Iowa.

It's the last thing.

It's.

Yes it's the it's the period at the end of a sentence.

Eminent domain was was the other big issue.

Let's talk about the budget right now.

It is a $9.43 billion budget.

5.3% increase.

That's $478 million.

Fiscal conservative.

Why are you seeing a 5.3% increase?

Sure.

This one.

I'm very close to Jim as House appropriations chair.

I spent most of my time during session working on the budget.

The reason the budget increases is for a lot of reasons.

And they're and they're basically good reasons.

One.

Medicaid is a federal program which requires state match, more people, more grandparents, or in nursing homes, who don't have the means to pay for it.

There are more low income families with children who have medical needs.

So our increase in Medicaid, is a 200 was a $225 million increase.

So there's were 225 million of it comes from.

Also, every year we increase our funding for schools.

Our education of our budget of the 9.4 billion.

Roughly 55% of our state budget.

So giving a two, two and a half, 3% increase to our schools, is is several hundred million dollars more.

And that occurs every year.

So those are just a couple of the reasons why our budget increased, $400 million.

Are you worried?

Let's start with, with Medicaid.

Are you worried about the federal government cutting back further and how that's going to impact?

I mean, does I will have to fill the void if the federal government leaves?

Well, we don't know.

The, that's the piece we don't understand right now.

What's the federal government going to do?

We keep hearing they're going to make changes, but yet we don't know what those changes are.

We don't know what impact it's going to have on our state budget.

We are required to provide a match.

But going down the road, if the federal government makes changes to Medicaid, we don't know what the requirements are going to be for the states.

We assume those costs are going to go up.

But again, until we know what the federal government is going to do with Medicaid, we're not sure other than we're keeping an eye on it because it is going to be another major expense.

Are you worried about it then?

I mean, because the federal government has had a role, and that states have really depended upon that.

So it really could raise taxes or it could really have a fiscal and a budget impact.

I'm not worried about it again.

We may have talked about this in the past.

We have $7 billion in the bank, in the state of Iowa.

So which is one of the reasons we cut taxes in the last few years.

So am I worried about it?

No.

Am I aware of it?

Am I concerned about what the impact is going to be?

Yes.

And we're watching that every day.

Watching what's happening in Washington, D.C., staying in touch with our federal legislators, trying to figure out what's going to happen.

But, we'll be ready for whatever, changes that the federal government makes.

You're expecting to bring in less revenue than you are going to spend.

We're expecting a $900 million deficit with this budget.

And you're talking about the $7 billion that's in the bank.

And that 900 million, I think, is part of what you're saying.

We can we can absorb that.

But for how long?

Well, if you look at it, Jim, assume we were going to spend 900 million more than what we take in every year.

And you have $7 billion in the bank.

You can do that for 7 or 8 years.

Now, do we expect to do that 7 or 8 years?

No, but this was all part of when we saw our revenues increasing.

The choice when it's like at home, when your revenues and your income goes up.

You can either save it or spend it.

And we chose to do a little bit of both.

We spent more money, but we also saved a lot of money to the point where once we got to $7 billion in the bank, we said, wait a minute.

This is too much money for the taxpayers to have in Des Moines, and we want to lower taxes.

We don't need to collect as much money.

So that's what we did.

We knew when we did that for a period of time that our expenses might exceed the the revenue that comes in.

But that's okay, because again, we've got the $7 billion in the bank.

The worst thing we could do, in my opinion, is have $7 billion in the bank and continue to tax the people of Iowa at the rates we were taxing them before when we don't need that money.

The argument, of course, is that, you said educational spending has increased about 2%.

Inflation is higher than that.

So schools and education isn't keeping up with inflation and that more of that 7 billion could be used for K through 12 or post-secondary education.

Why do you think that the 2% is enough?

When a lot of people in education are saying, no, it's not.

Well, again, Jim, you might know this.

The House, proposal was, significantly higher that we proposed 2.5% increase.

We we proposed an increase in transportation costs and per pupil equity.

In paraprofessional salaries.

So we had a package that would have been something in the neighborhood of over 4%.

But in in our system of government, we don't get to decide.

We have to work with the Senate.

We have to work with the governor, both of which had proposed the 2%.

Now, where the compromise ended up was we agreed to the 2%, but we did get some of those additional costs.

Increase in transportation cost per pupil equity.

So that was the ultimate compromise regarding the issue about inflation.

I have a lot of people say to me as appropriations chair, you're not keeping up with inflation.

I ask everyone that I talked to brings this up to me.

How many years in your work life did your salary keep up with inflation, and how do you ever get inflation under control?

If you're always matching what inflation is, then it's a spiral that never stops and we don't have the money to keep everyone up with inflation.

Because I got to tell you, education is the biggest part of our budget.

But everybody that receives money from the state says to me, Gary, we're not getting enough to keep up with inflation.

It's not just education.

So we do the best we can.

We do what we think the taxpayers of Iowa want us to do.

The majority of them.

And we have to live within our means.

And so that's why we ended up where we did the 2%.

Well, another increases and as you pointed out, there was a clash between the house where you are and the state Senate over the budget issue and some of the promises that were made earlier, a pair of educators in particular.

Tell me how that was resolved.

And and in a way, the House was keeping up with what was promised in the Senate.

Not so much in this case.

You're exactly right.

We made a commitment, all of us, last year, to increase salaries for paraprofessionals at schools.

We put that in our budget again for this year.

Once you give a raise, you can't stop giving it.

And then the Senate, the governor did, didn't choose to want to fund that in a second year.

We stood firm on that, which was what took so long.

We said, you can't do this to the people in the schools, because to the best of my knowledge, it had to do with sports betting, gambling revenues.

And if you if you allow for the gambling revenues, then we're going to use that money for the educators.

Well, to get to the compromise of the 11th hour of the legislative session, the agreement was to use one time the sports wagering money, because we've got about a $50 million balance there.

That money has not been spent.

And so we did agree in the House with the Senate and the governor, if you guys will agree with us, to give that money, will agree to use the sports wagering fund money one year to fund that increase next year.

Our expectation is that will go back under general revenue.

One of the areas as far as funding is you brought it up and it's the opioid, settlement disbursement.

It is meant for prevention, recovery and treatment.

The state of Iowa was sitting on this money for a long period of time.

Finally, an agreement on how that should be spent.

That's an interesting one.

I'll give you a little background on that one, Jim.

You're right.

The last couple of years, the House and Senate could not come to agreement on the opioid settlement money.

So in Iowa right now, we have about a $56 million, fund for opioid settlement.

Speaker Grassley came to me at the beginning of session and he said, Gary, do you think as appropriations chair, you can work with your counterpart in the Senate and get an agreement that we can get a bill passed this year?

And it took us all session, but we did.

And so we came up with a bill that I think it's a good bill.

To start to use that $56 million.

The idea is not just to spend money, but we need to provide those services to those people who are either, need treatment or to help prevent people from getting opioid addicted.

And so now we're starting to use that money.

We did get a bill.

Got it passed.

I'm not sure if the governor signed it yet or not, but, she was involved in the discussion, so I'm sure she will.

Critics say that during the period of time that the settlement settlement occurred and the money is being dispersed, there were 1100 deaths from opioids in Iowa.

Yeah, I mean that, What do you say to that?

Well, I haven't heard that number.

I'm sure that's probably true.

I don't know if the number is correct.

But again, in our system, until the House and the Senate and the governor all agree on how to spend the money.

There was no agreement.

Well, we got an agreement this year.

I'm very pleased about that.

In fact, I'm very pleased that some of the money will be coming to Scott County.

To Vera French to help, with prevention and treatment of, opioid addictions.

One of the areas that you didn't accomplish was property tax, reform, which was a really major issue among Republicans.

Is that, was that too much to bite off in this session with everything else that was going on or, or why could property tax reform not be settled this year?

One of the major reasons why, Jim, and most of your viewers will know this property tax isn't money that comes to the state of Iowa.

So we're dealing with money that goes to cities, counties, school districts.

It's not our money.

So we need to be very careful in what we do and how we make changes with that.

The only reason we're involved with this issue, because of this in our money, is so many of our constituents.

And I get the calls that from my constituents to say, Gary, you guys did a good job reducing income taxes.

You got to do something with property taxes.

They're killing me.

A lot of people I hear from our senior citizens who are on pensions.

They say my pension isn't going up.

My property taxes go up every year.

My city says they hold the line on the tax rate, but my taxes go up.

The.

So we hear a lot from senior citizens.

They're concerned they're going to have to sell their houses.

So when that many constituents come to us and say you guys got to look at this, that's why we're looking at it.

But the worst thing we could do is come to a quick agreement on something that doesn't affect our income.

It affects the cities, counties and school districts.

So this past session, this isn't unusual.

We had a lot of meetings with cities, counties, school districts, trying to hear their different perspectives.

I think we're probably 70, 80% toward a bill, which will take up again next legislative session.

This isn't unusual for big bills or big issues like this to roll over from one year to the next.

So I'm not concerned about it.

Again, the worst thing we could do is do this quickly and do it wrong.

Well, the state has gotten involved in a lot of, local funding issues.

A cap on on increases.

Also, and I can't remember what it's called, but it's the elimination of all these different taxing districts.

And you're seeing cities and counties kind of scramble because of what the Iowa legislature does.

Did is our state lawmakers getting too involved in these local funding and local government issues?

Well, I would say no in the fact that when our constituents, when so many of our constituents and frankly, this is probably the number one issue I get calls about, is controlling the growth of property taxes.

So I think it is our responsibility when our constituents contact us and say, you guys got to help us.

We don't want people to have to sell their houses because they can't pay property taxes.

But that's what takes so long, Jim, is we we want to address those issues, but we also don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Sure.

And so that's what we're doing right now.

We're listening, having conversations.

And I think probably next session we'll come up with with the final bill.

Because when it comes to property taxes, you do talk about municipality, county and particularly schools.

Those are the big three.

And they will say they're being very fiscally conservative.

They're doing the best they can, but that there's mandates, there's other things that they have to fund.

As you know, a property tax and, and sales tax, more regressive income tax would be a better way or a less regressive way.

But income tax is the state.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Now you understand why this is such a complicated process and why the state has to be involved.

Because if you if you weren't able, if you don't eliminate income taxes, perhaps you can lower property taxes and make up that difference.

Well, and one of the, one of the main reasons ways to reduce property taxes for the state treasury to help backfill local districts.

If that's true, then we are going to have to be involved.

You're absolutely right.

But you're now seeing the complexity here of why this isn't something you can do over a weekend.

It takes a lot of discussion.

You got to involve all those parties, have them at the table before you can come to some resolution of what we're going to do.

Let's talk about three issues that aren't necessarily monetary.

It took until this session for Iowa lawmakers to come up with a hands free bill for driving.

I think a lot of people are sitting there going, you know what took so long?

It died in session a number of times before being approved and goes into effect July 1st.

What took so long on that?

This was an interesting one.

I've watched.

I've been in the legislature now nine years, and I've watched this virtually every year.

Jim, the reason it took so long is I can't speak toward the Senate, but in the House we have 100 members, and there were roughly 50 members that wanted hands free.

While driving, there were roughly 50 members who didn't.

And so there was not a consensus on which way to go on any particular day.

You might have 51, 49, and the next day you might have 5149 the other way.

There was no consensus.

Finally, after a number of years and lobbying, I'm sure, from a number of groups and hearing from people back home.

The legislature did ultimately now pass it.

And, I voted for the bill.

So that's not unusual when there's not a consensus in the legislature.

It takes a while, and it might happen also in property tax, where there's not a consensus, where there's too many divergent opinions, and we don't have the votes to pass something.

But yet Iowa lawmakers were able to take, gender protections out of, the Civil Rights Act within days.

And you sit there and it was something that important to a number of people Iowa lawmakers were able to do immediately and hands free.

Not so.

Tell me about the changes in the Civil Rights Act.

I mean, why was that?

I remember talking to you at the beginning, before the session started, and you were saying that you gotta remember that there's going to be nonsense issues that have to be brought up, and they don't go anywhere.

And some people will say this was a huge issue.

It's it's a civil rights issue.

And why did Iowa lawmakers do this?

I think, Jim, and this this is my observation.

Just my personal one as I've watched this issue.

I think the intent ten, 12 years ago when the legislature put, this in the Civil Rights Code.

They did not expect to have happen.

What happened?

And I'll give you an example, because, the transgender issue is in the Civil Rights Code.

People who are in our prisons, who are in cars rated, who are on government health care programs, made the case that they were entitled to, let's say, operations, transgender operations at the taxpayer expense.

I don't know that that was ever the original intent, but because now that it's in the Civil Rights Code, it was determined by the courts that that were the case.

And so now we have individuals who are on public assistance getting taxpayers to fund their surgeries, while other people who are not on public assistance don't get taxpayer assistance to fund surgeries.

We had another situation in a school district over in the Iowa City area, where a transgender student didn't want one, or to use the restroom of the, other sex.

And the resolution was no, you can use this unisex restroom.

And the student said, no, I don't want to do that.

And they were they were told by the courts or the attorneys they had grounds to sue to be able to use the restroom of the, the, the new, their new sex.

I don't think that was ever the original intent of the bill when they included it in civil rights.

And so for me personally, it was more of a fairness issue, that I think we need to treat everyone the same, whether they're transgender or not.

And that was the impetus, I think, for getting it out of the civil Rights Code.

Iowa may have been the first to get it out of the Civil Rights Code, but I think there was good reason for it, because I think the bill ultimately started doing things that no one intended when it was passed originally 10 or 12 years ago.

When it comes as Iowa has the very first transgender lawmaker.

I mean, is it is it difficult to to look, Amy, walking dull in the eyes and go, we remove this?

No, it's not difficult for me because again, I go back to I don't think it's right that we pay for certain things for certain individuals, a taxpayer expense, and not necessarily others.

And so to me, it's a fairness issue has nothing to do with just the transgender.

I have friends who are transgender and it's fine.

But to me, the issue was a bill that had gone awry over 10 or 12 years because we got into things that I don't think was ever the intent when the bill was passed originally.

One other thing, and it had Republicans pitted against each other, which was an interesting, concept, was the eminent domain issue, because of carbon capture pipelines going through Iowa?

There's a real fear in rural Iowa that greater use of eminent domain is going to occur.

You know, something got passed.

We're still waiting between when we record this and when this airs, the governor may sign or veto it.

Was it was that a difficult decision for you?

Well, not for me.

Here's why.

Early on today, you asked about what took why it took so long.

The legislature.

That was one of the reasons, because there were about a dozen legislators in the Senate who said, we're not going to pass any appropriation bills until we get a chance to vote on eminent domain.

So there were a number of days where they didn't do any business.

And that was one of the main reasons why we were delayed a few days.

But to me, it's very simple.

Eminent domain is a good law.

When it's used for the public good, building highways, building schools, building hospitals, those are the public good for everybody.

And that's the purpose of eminent domain.

But here on the CO2 pipeline, these are private companies.

And the difficulty that some had, I didn't have the difficulty because I thought, I don't want to see eminent domain used for private company benefits.

It's just like I don't want a private company having the right to take some of my farm or some of my yard.

That's not true.

Eminent domain in my mind, because there are alternatives.

They have, where eminent domain is not necessary.

It was an easy vote for me.

Private property is private property, and no private company has the right to come in and just take over some of my property.

I have a few seconds left.

What was the key issue that you think this session that you're most proud of getting accomplished?

Well, we go back to the budget.

It's always the money.

And again, as appropriations chair, I spent a lot of time on that.

I was pleased we we passed a $9.4 billion budget.

We have $7 billion in the bank.

We didn't do what Illinois did.

We didn't have to raise any taxes to get there.

So the budget bills, we're funding government for another year.

And I know a lot of people aren't happy with how much we fund, but that's always the case.

We can never fund what everybody wants.

But I'm very happy that we've funded the government of Iowa for another year.

Our thanks to State Representative Gary Moore, Republican from Bettendorf.

We've scheduled a discussion with Iowa Democrats as well.

And that's coming up in a future program.

But still to come, we start a segment called Civic Spark, asking people in the cities about their passions and why their commitments make our nation and the cities a better place.

But first, a look at area events.

Thanks to visit Quad Cities.

Check out the things to do this week in the Quad Cities.

Start your week off enjoying free live music at Lincoln Park on June 3rd.

Then on June 5th, you can attend the opening night of polling focused film festival at the Last Picture House.

Next, attend the summer kickoff block party on June 6th.

Then you can be downtown for the ultimate neighborhood party.

It's free to attend on June 7th and finally experience the Rock Island Artists Market as Skeleton Key Art and antiques on June 8th.

For more events like these, check out our events calendar at visit Quad cities.com.

Next year marks 250 years since that fateful day in 1776, when America was born.

We ask people about their civic spark, why they chose their career and how it impacts our society.

During the pandemic.

The big message was about the virus and the vaccines, and it came from public health officials like Brooke Barnes from the Scott County Health Department.

So we asked her, what's your civic spark?

So public health was sort of the career I never knew about and never knew I always wanted.

I started in social work and got into public health after I got a degree in public policy and had started with tobacco prevention and control, looking at policies within the community.

And so that's where I got started.

And then, you know, really just kind of dived into all the amazing work that public health does in a community, really that driver of questions and facilitation and trying to better understand policies and systems.

And so for me, that really brought together the two things I had been interested in was, you know, social work helping as well as some of the policy pieces.

And now as we, you know, really take a focus on health equity and how we can make systems equitable for individuals.

That's really what drives me every day.

And the passion that I see.

And really the important role I think that public health plays in a community is asking those questions, making sure we're looking at things in different ways and and really seeing how, everything impacts individuals and their ability to, you know, be healthy, live fulfilling lives, and just to make our community strong.

Our thanks to Brooke Barnes from the Scott County Health Department.

On the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device and streaming on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us.

As we talk about the issues, other cities.