Repealing Trust

Trust Fund supporters line the hallway outside the subcommittee meeting.

The urgent call came out with less than a day’s notice. Nevertheless, hundreds of people mobilized and got themselves to the capitol in Des Moines on a frigid day in the middle of the workweek. 

It didn’t matter. The decision had been made long before the public knew anything was coming. That’s how things work up there more often than not. As such, a sum total of three legislators made the decision to move forward a proposed change to Iowa’s constitution. Public opposition be damned. 

While it still has a long way to go, the bill, currently titled SJR6, would repeal the unfunded Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund and replace it with a property tax relief fund. While this may sound great on the surface – who doesn’t want property tax relief, right? – the reality is not so clean. 

First, some background.

In 2006, a governor-appointed Sustainable Funding Committee explored how to fund Iowa’s natural resources and outdoor recreation. Comprising conservation, agriculture, and legislative representatives from both sides, the committee held statewide listening sessions, gathered expert testimony, and surveyed the public. Extensively.

After evaluating 40+ funding options, they unanimously recommended a 3/8 cent sales tax increase, projected to generate $150 million annually for parks, trails, soil and water quality, and natural resources. To ensure funds were used as intended, they proposed a constitutionally protected trust fund. The funds would be disbursed through a legislatively established funding formula and subject to an annual public audit.

In true government fashion, the legislature then appointed another committee to review the first committee’s findings. In 2007, a second committee reviewed the findings and unanimously endorsed the plan, recommending that Iowans vote on creating the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund.

Now, justifiably, changing the Iowa Constitution is no small feat. Just getting the question on the ballot requires passing it through two consecutive general assemblies of the legislature. But they did it. More than 90 percent of the legislators in both the 2008 and 2009 sessions voted to allow the constitutional amendment to be placed on the 2010 ballot. 

It’s hard to imagine over 90 percent of our legislators agreeing to anything today. 

After that, it was simply a matter of finding out whether the committees’ findings were accurate. Did Iowans really want such a fund established? Were they really willing to pay for natural resources and outdoor recreation to the tune of $150 million annually via a 3/8 cent sales tax?

The answer was clear. Iowans overwhelmingly supported the measure with 62.8 percent of voters approving the constitutional amendment creating the Trust Fund. More votes were cast for it than any candidate on the ballot. It was the culmination of an effort to address major policy issues by listening to the very citizens to which those policies would apply. The vote essentially placed the burden of taxation in the hands of the very people who would pay it.

Except, it doesn’t actually work that way. 

The constitutional amendment vote only created the Trust Fund. It didn’t put any money into it. That requires legislative action. Specifically, it requires passage of a sales tax increase of at least three-eighths of a penny. That cannot be done by referendum. Iowans don’t get to vote on such things (otherwise, logically, you’d think that would have been part of the original ballot measure).

And now here we are today, almost 15 years later, and the fund still sits empty because our legislators and now two consecutive governors have failed to make this a priority. Instead, they’re now basically saying, “we don’t like what you told us to do, so here’s something different.”

Which takes us back to Des Moines last week. Instead of collecting a sales tax to improve our state in ways Iowans value, this new bill collects a sales tax from everyone and gives it to property owners by way of property tax relief. Exactly how that “relief” would be given isn’t clear. Hopefully it’s more effective than the multiple “backfill” relief mechanisms the state has failed to provide to cities and counties over the years.

The real issue here, I feel, is one of trust. In 2010, Iowans voted to amend the constitution to create the Trust Fund. A constitutional amendment is, to many, the pinnacle of legislative commitment. Its intent is to bind future administrations – and future generations – to those constitutional expectations. We have to trust that once it’s written into the constitution, it’s there to stay, with very rare exceptions. If we’re okay with repealing an amendment in the span of two governors, or on account of current headlines or fiscal budgets, what’s the point of putting it into the constitution in the first place? 

Iowans have already stated their position on this. We shouldn’t have to do it again.

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This is my monthly newspaper column that is published in local papers in Des Moines County, Iowa.