County officials question legislative leaders

By MATT MILNER Courier staff writer

May 08, 2008 11:42 pm

— OTTUMWA — Democratic legislative leaders stopped in Ottumwa on Thursday to tout their achievements from the 2008 General Assembly, but state Sen. Mike Gronstal and state Rep. Pat Murphy faced questions about several bills that passed.
Members of the Wapello County Board of Supervisors used the opportunity to bring some of their complaints directly to legislative leaders. They voted earlier this week to urge Gov. Chet Culver to use line-item veto to strike language from a bill that allows cities to capture TIF revenues that would otherwise go to the counties.
Supervisor Steve Siegel handed Murphy, D-Dubuque, the House majority leader, an envelope containing the county’s letter of protest as he came in.
“We’re upset,” he said. “But you’ve probably heard that before.”
“Just from about every county,” Murphy responded.
Gronstal and Murphy’s audience was primarily other elected officials. More than half of those present serve in the Iowa House or Senate.
Democratic leadership can usually count on a warm reception in Wapello County. Voters are overwhelmingly members of the Democratic Party, and the party controls the local elected offices. Gronstal and Murphy faced polite but pointed questions this time, particularly on a bill that allows cities to capture funds previously available to counties.
The supervisors blasted the bill during Tuesday’s meeting. They said the county stands to lose tens of millions of dollars if the bill is signed without changes. The bill allows cities to capture incremental increases in revenue from local option sales taxes for funds in Tax Increment Financing districts.
Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, framed the issue as a dispute over TIF, saying cities and counties have a fundamentally different view of the financing.
“You assume you’re going to lose it all. I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of counties that are going to use this. Cities love TIF counties hate TIF that’s the way it is,” he said.
Siegel didn’t let go of the issue.
“I don’t think it’s at all fair. That’s not what our people voted for. They didn’t vote to fund the city’s TIF fund,” he responded.
County Auditor Phyllis Dean also questioned the bill’s impact, saying it leaves too much of county revenues at the mercy of cities.
“We won’t be able to afford to have the money go for what we said it would go for,” she said. Dean also questioned whether the Iowa Farm Bureau, one of the state’s more powerful lobbies, is aware of the bill. “Are they aware that this has happened?”
“Yeah, they’re lobbying [against] it, too,” Gronstal said.
Gronstal made it clear he sees TIF as a positive tool for cities in Iowa, regardless of counties’ views. He said TIF funds have been a boon for his senate district.
He also defended the Legislature’s decision to give the governor, department heads and judges double-digit percentage pay raises. The judges’ pay increase came with significant increases in their contributions to pension funds. And Gronstal said it makes no sense to have deputy directors who are better paid than their bosses, as is the case in many state offices.
Iowa is in a better position than most parts of the country to make such moves, Gronstal said. He pointed to Iowa’s 9 percent economic growth in the most recent numbers, well over the national rate.
“For too long in statewide elected positions, in my view, have played political games. What we did was we set their rate of pay at the same rate as for other department directors in state government,” Gronstal said. “It was about taking the politics out of the state salary discussions.”
Is it realistic to try to remove politics from elected offices?
“I guess the people will judge whether that was the right thing to do or not,” Gronstal said.
Matt Milner can be reached at (641) 683-5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com

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