The announcement that came out of the Legislative Session last week was that the Senate had passed an appropriations defunding bill addressing a shortfall of about $30 million in this year’s budget. This topic played a big role in the discussion at Saturday morning’s first Carroll Chamber of Commerce Legislative Forum in the New Hope Activities Building. Senator, Mark Segebart, says he wants to dispel the widespread reporting on Friday that said about 30 courthouses could be closed.
Segebart says that the area impacted would be the judicial arm at the local courthouses.
House Representative, Brian Best, says Gov. Kim Reynolds was asking for about $3.4 million in a cushion to help the government get through if the budget comes up short in March. He adds that he has a big problem with the current Senate bill because leadership is working on a $30 million cushion instead.
A major complaint, he says, is that the judicial arm will take a hit of an estimated $4.9 million, resulting in the probability of laying off employees and having fewer judges than what we already have. It will also have a huge impact on our community colleges.
Best adds that as a person who believes we need to progress and keep jobs in the rural areas, cutting community college, judicial and corrections is not going to be of help on that front. He says that we have been hammering on these sectors for a while now, and they are all about as lean as they can be.
