DES MOINES, IA — On Thursday, Dec. 19, Nate Ristow, President & CEO of the Iowa Taxpayers Association, attended the public budget hearing and provided the following written comments to the Governor’s Office.
Since its formation in 1935, the Iowa Taxpayers Association’s mission has been to educate and inform Iowans about sound fiscal policy; provide state policymakers with objective, nonpartisan research about the impact of specific tax and spending policies; and advocate for the adoption of rational public fiscal policy as it relates to business taxes. ITA is a professional resource and network of tax policy experts, educators and advocates for sound fiscal policy to stimulate economic growth.
ITA espouses three primary principles for sound budgeting:
Accurately determine revenue and expenses,
Align expenses and revenue in the same fiscal year,
Use one-time or time-limited revenue for one-time, not ongoing, expenses.
Over the past several years, the Governor and the legislature have enacted budgets that adhere to these principles, receiving a ‘plus’ for each of these three principles from ITA’s Committee on Accountable Government for the FY25 budget. These sound budgeting efforts have allowed the Governor and legislature to deliver tax relief for individuals and businesses in Iowa.
To highlight this point, the FY25 budget spent 80% of the statutory limitation, which includes one-time surplus carry forward from the prior fiscal year. But while the state could clearly have spent substantially more statutorily, the FY25 budget only spent 97% of the available funds under ITA’s sound budgeting principles, as well. We want to commend the Governor and the legislature on their responsible budgeting and encourage their continued adherence to sound budgeting in FY26.
