House Republicans have reworked their property tax bill as they seek to strike a deal with the governor and the Senate — but there’s no final agreement.
Republicans have called cutting property taxes their main priority for the year, and the lack of agreement between House and Senate leaders and Gov. Kim Reynolds is one of the largest obstacles to adjourning Iowa’s legislative session.
House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, told reporters April 16 that the new House plan incorporates elements of Reynolds’ bill and the Senate proposal, although he said it has yet to be agreed to by all parties.
“This is a serious step forward in the right direction and this is something that should be taken very seriously as a potential compromise,” he said.
Reynolds called the House’s proposal a great development, saying “I think it’s great momentum.”
“Somebody has to do it,” she said. “Everybody has their bills and so what they’ve made an attempt to do is to take a look at the Senate and governor and their bill and try to put where they saw some similarities … put them in one bill so that we can start operating off of that.”
The Senate passed its property tax bill 41-4 on April 8. House lawmakers have yet to vote on their own proposal.
What changes are in the new House property tax proposal?
House Republicans’ new proposal includes numerous changes from their previous bill. It would:
Revenue limits, rollback, gas tax still remain areas of difference
The House bill keeps its strict 2% revenue growth cap for local governments and does not allow greater growth if inflation is higher, as the Senate’s bill does.
It also does not align with one of the Senate bill’s most dramatic changes — getting rid of the decades-old rollback mechanism that limits a home’s taxable value.
And House Republicans left out language in the Senate plan that would raise the state’s gas tax and index it to inflation.
Grassley said he’s been talking with House Republicans about the gas tax but they haven’t reached an agreement on it.
“I’ve been open with the Senate and with the governor,” he said. “We are still considering what a path forward may look like. I recognize that’s important to others in the building, so I’m not ignorant to the fact that we need to look at it, I just don’t know if we’re in a position for a resolution on that.”
Still, Grassley said, he believes the new House bill brings the parties closer to an agreement.
“We’ve incorporated several pieces that both the Senate and the governor wanted to have,” he said. “We feel that there needs to be movement towards finding a compromise.”
Whatever the final bill looks like, Reynolds said it needs to cut property taxes and prevent them from growing as quickly in the future.
“My overall goal is to reduce property taxes,” she said. “They have been on an accelerated trajectory for the last several years and it’s not sustainable. Homeowners can’t keep up with this — they just can’t. And so we have to be better at how we deliver services to our constituents”
Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on X at @sgrubermiller.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa House GOP unveils reworked property tax plan. How close is a deal?
Reporting by Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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