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Feb. 23, 2025 5:00 am
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Iowa’s general fund budget looks like a boring stack of numbers that only a government geek could love. But behind all those line items is a competition for resources, revenues, tax dollars, big bucks, moola, Benjamins whatever you want to call it.
As I’ve written in the past, Republicans who control the Golden Dome of Wisdom, now redder than a food fight on spaghetti night, have inflicted an artificial scarcity of budgetary bucks. Lawmakers and the governor present and pass budgets spending far less than state law allows and sock away billions in surpluses.
Big chunks of those surpluses have gone to the Taxpayer Relief Fund, intended to patch revenue losses from waves of income tax cuts. The rest is carried over to next year, where the lowball, sock away, create a big surplus rotation continues.
That brand of budgeting has led to inadequate funding for Iowa’s mental health system, children’s mental health, access to quality child care, nursing home oversight, our public schools and a list of needs that should be priorities.
And the billions in tax cuts are starting to significantly reduce state revenues. Gov. Kim Reynolds’ general fund budget plan for Fiscal Year 2026, which begins July one, needs $351 million from the taxpayer relief fund and scoops into the 2.1 billion surplus expected at the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.
That’s because, according to the Revenue Estimating Conference, which makes revenue predictions that form the basis of budgets, tax collections during the current budget year will decline by $600 million. Next year, FY 2026, revenues are predicted to drop by $428 million.
And yet, the governor’s 2026 budget still ends up with a $1.7 billion surplus. The Taxpayer Relief Fund will stand at $3.6 billion.
Clearly, tax cuts are the top priority.
But the governor and lawmakers also created a $300 million annual entitlement program during all this tax cutting and surplus building. They approved the creation of publicly funded Education Savings Accounts for private school students.
Now, of course, $314 million for scholarships in FY 2026 pales in comparison to the $3.8 billion spent on public schools. The scholarship program’s budget increases 44% in 2026, approximately $96.6 million. Reynolds provides a 2 percent increase in state aid to public schools, or about $102 million.
House Democrats have tried to make political hay out of the 2 percent vs. 44%. As my colleague Althea Cole explained at length last Sunday, the percentage comparison is misleading. All you need is a calculator to debunk it.
But the biggest issue facing public schools is competition for resources.
With a $314 million entitlement on the books, the chance public schools can get a larger increase in state aid shrinks considerably. The private scholarship program has busted through previous cost estimates, so $314 million may turn out to be too conservative.
New private schools will start opening in Iowa. The scholarships will provide state money to every kid who goes to a private school, even if their family doesn’t need the help. The program is basically a blank check. How expensive will it be? It will be as expensive as it needs to be.
Private school kids get the same state aid as public-school kids. Swell.
But what about equality of access? There are kids attending public schools in rural Iowa who don’t live near any private schools. They must stick with public schools, which must now compete for funding with private school scholarships rural students can’t use. Rural lawmakers who tried to point this out felt the wrath of a governor scorned.
Reynolds also bodychecked Area Education Agencies, causing more problems for rural schools. AEAs will see their budgets cut by $25 million in the governor’s plan. AEA’s provide services that rural schools rely on, like special education, technology and classroom support.
Republicans will tout the $3.8 billion number and proclaim K-12 education now takes up 40% of the budget. True, but this is nothing new. School aid’s size of the pie has been in the upper 30s to low 40s for many, many years.
During Fiscal Years 2006 to 2017, according to the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency, school aid’s average share of the budget was 41%. That’s under Democratic and Republican governors and mixed legislative control.
Private school scholarships are Reynolds’ pride and joy. Sure, she’s done some stuff for public schools, teacher pay increases, literacy and math initiatives, etc. But that’s not why she’s asked to speak at conservative think tanks and Fox News.
They wonder, how did she do it?
Well, she traveled across Iowa in 2022 spouting garbage about how terrible public schools have become. If our public education system is a souped-up four-wheel drive, Reynolds took a Louisville Slugger to both head lights and slashed a hole in all four tires.
After all of that, she now says public schools are at fault for why some kids are leaving. Forget what she said, and that the Legislature is now a vindictive school board.
Republican and Democratic governors throughout Iowa’s history have bragged about the state’s public education system. We had public schools that made us proud. Now we’ve got a governor who makes us cringe.
Are you feeling that “Freedom to Flourish” yet?
(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com
Opinion content represents the viewpoint of the author or The Gazette editorial board. You can join the conversation by submitting a letter to the editor or guest column or by suggesting a topic for an editorial to editorial@thegazette.com
24 Hour Dorman, The Gazette
Columnist/editorial writer for The Gazette. Sign up for my Pints & Politics newsletter.
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