Iowa’s legislative session is going into overtime after it was scheduled to end Friday, with budget fights keeping the session from ending.
House Republicans have proposed spending $36 million more on state services than Senate Republicans and the governor.
Gov. Kim Reynolds has made multiple media appearances this week saying the House GOP’s budget plan isn’t fiscally responsible.
House Speaker Pat Grassley says one of the big sticking points is that the House GOP wants $14 million for a pay bump for paraeducators. The Legislature approved that amount last year, and he’s urging the Senate and governor to support it again.
“Our caucus feels extremely strong that if we’re going to provide that level of support that we did with that bill last year, that we’re not going to go back and just cut that and leave our schools in a situation to find the difference. Those are more like Gov. Culver practices that we saw, and we don’t want to see that happening on something like that.”
Former Iowa Gov. Chet Culver was a Democrat who made major state budget cuts during the Great Recession.