At about four o’clock this afternoon, Governor Terry Branstad’s staff revealed details about more cuts in the present year’s state budget. The spending reduction plan legislators approved a few weeks ago directed the governor’s budget director to make another $11.5 million in cuts on his own.
That plan from Department of Management director Dave Roederer calls for community colleges to pare another $1.7 million in spending between now and June 30, 2017. The University of Iowa must cut $1.2 million deeper. Iowa State University must cut nearly a million and the University of Northern Iowa about half a million.
The state’s prison system will be required to make another quarter-of-a-million dollar cut and the Highway Patrol will have to cut its budget by more than a half million dollars.