Business leader says legislative session was "break even"

The 2001 Iowa Legislative session, which concluded this week, was a “break even year” for business issues. Iowa Association of Business and Industry executive director Jim Aipperspach says everything was difficult because of state’s tax collections are lagging. And, Aipperspach says state budget conversations over-rode everything else.The Association of Business and Industry’s number one priority was to discourage the legislature from passing health care mandates, like requiring insurance companies to cover certain procedures. He says they believe they were successful in that area.Aipperspach was among the business executives who tried to broker a deal that would have kept open many of the 56 Workforce Development offices around the state. Those offices will now close because republican legislators decided not to continue a business surcharge that financed the offices.