There was another meeting of key Iowa legislative leaders late Tuesday afternoon, but still no end to the statehouse stalemate over state aid to public schools. A 10-member conference committee assembled weeks ago to try to break the impasse met, but both parties kept to their respective bargaining positions. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen of Hiawatha, the top Republican in the legislature, says Republicans are not going to budge from their proposal to boost general state aid to schools by about 100-million dollars.
Democrats, meanwhile, are sticking to their call to spend 100-million more than Republicans have offered. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs, the top Democrat in the legislature, says the state committment to education has declined in the past three decades.
By law, the decision on how much money the state’s public school districts will get for the school year that starts this fall was supposed to have been made more than a year ago. If legislators fail to reach an agreement this year, districts will get the same amount of money for the next school year as was received this year.
