by Tracy Kurowski

The union members most affected by Governor Culver’s ten percent across-the-board state budget cuts will be the 40,000 state employees represented mainly by AFSCME. However, the cuts announced on October 8, 2009, aren’t solely a union issue. In addition to the thousands of families who will find themselves added to the unemployment roster, the cuts will add strain to the remaining workers – union and non-union alike – by increasing their work loads to untenable levels. The rest of Iowans will feel the effects by a marked reduction in state services that some depend on, and most take for granted.

On one level, it makes perfect sense that when revenues are reduced, so must spending be cut. However, cutting state services isn’t the same as cuts in the private sector. If there is less demand for widgets in the private sector, fewer widgets are made and fewer widget-makers are employed. But in the public sector, there is noeciprocal reduction in demand for service; in fact, due to the stalled economy, demands on the public sector increase.

Increased layoffs result in increased demand on services in the Iowa Department of Employment Security. The economic crisis has also spurned increases in residents eligible for FIP, Medicaid and HAWK-I, the applications and processing of which are conducted by state employees. Increased foreclosures have resulted in increased calls to the State’s foreclosure prevention hotline, and waiting lists for government subsidized housing have grown. When parents can no longer afford to send their children to private school, they will send them to public school.  When your car gets repossessed, you rely on public transportation. When the increase in poverty leads, as it has historically done, to increases in crime, there will be an increased need for courts, police, social workers, state corrections, etc.

Additionally, the day-to-day operations of the state remain the same. Iowa’s population has not decreased by ten percent, so there are not fewer residents that first responders have to protect and serve. Snow will still have to be removed from the same miles of highways. The Department of Agriculture still has the same farm acreage to supervise. Public buildings still have the same square footage to maintain. The garbage will still need to be picked up.

How does the rest of the state’s leadership feel about this revenue capitulation?  Not long after Governor Culver contributed to the shared sacrifice by taking a $13,000 pay cut, Senate Majority Leader Gronstal, House Speaker Murphy, Senate President Kibbie and House Majority Leader McCarthy issued a joint statement acquiescing, “the legislature will reduce spending by 10% just like other areas of state government. We will do our part to keep the state budget balanced in these tough economic times.”

Governor Culver’s Order stated, “an across-the-board reduction of General Fund expenditures avoids the unfair and unrealistic ‘picking and choosing’ of important programs.”  But the seemingly neutral 10% across-the-board cuts are in fact unfair and unrealistic in a world of complicated funding processes. Placing the words “picking and choosing” in quotes implies that somehow, the legislature is incapable of deliberating over difficult budget decisions, that all programs are equal, that safety and the safety net have equal standing as bike paths and cultural programming. Don’t misunderstand, I am a cyclist and patronize the arts, but thoughtful debate on how cuts affect essential programs is necessary if in fact we want to be realistic and recognize fairness. As a community, are we more willing to accept a delay in a bike path funding or would we prefer delays in child support collection efforts or delays in court services? Health care and nutrition programs for children or subsidies for multi-million international corporations? Police officers and fire fighters or capital gains tax caps?

Most significantly, the cuts assume that there is no other approach to the state budget other than slashing public services, that increasing revenues is off the table. Thankfully, Iowa Federation of Labor president emeritus Mark Smith pointed out in an op-ed for the Des Moines Register that, lost in the debate over budget shortfalls is an examination of Iowa’s tax code. The Dow’s bounce-back from below 7,000 points seven months ago to 10,000 today is evidence that money is still being made in our country. If stock prices are up but state revenues aren’t seeing equivalent increases in revenue, perhaps someone needs to ask why.

On Tuesday, all state executive branch departments will submit their plans on how they will implement the 10 percent across-the-board budget cut and finalize by Oct. 28.  Let us hope that someone in the legislature reads the Des Moines Register and considers an alternative to inevitable draconian cuts. Let us hope that the Governor realizes that in taking the helm of the State, he would be faced with making decisions that, though difficult, should be fair and reasonable.