There will be no “special session” of the Iowa legislature this fall to discuss fixes to the state budget and the debate is now shifting to topics for the 2018 legislative session. Governor Kim Reynolds now says she’d be able to cover the short-fall in last year’s state budget by withdrawing 13-million dollars from the state’s economic emergency fund. Reynolds says in July, she was getting “a lot of push” to have legislators reconvene to fix things.
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The governor’s budget director says more than 70-million dollars in money that was due the state by June 30th was actually paid in July. That whittled the deficit for the last budgeting year to a level Reynolds had the authority to erase on her own, without legislative action. Reynolds says it’s now time for policymakers to look at changing Iowa tax rates in 2018.
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Some of the extra tax dollars came to the state in July due to the way pay periods lined up in June.
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