Branstad continued 'jobs for Iowa' tour in Iowa City today

IOWA CITY - Gov. Terry Branstad made a brief appearance in Iowa City as part of his “Jobs for Iowa” tour at the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce Thursday morning.

Branstad discussed his plan for lowering commercial property taxes, eliminating unnecessary regulation on business and creating a new public-private partnership in an effort to bring jobs to Iowa.

He said the Iowa City and Johnson County area have a significant advantage in bringing in jobs citing the University of Iowa and the several research opportunities made available.

“The research park here and the one in Ames has been instrumental in dozens of new companies,” he said. “They have started up from the research that goes on at the university and that's helping create some of the jobs for the future.”

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The governor stressed lowering the commercial property tax is crucial in adding jobs throughout the state, noting Iowa has the second highest commercial property tax of all 50 states.

“We we are way out of whack,” he said. “When communities try to attract commercial businesses, they've had to use tax abatement or tax increment financing because it's so high. I've been all over the state and the one thing I've heard that is really unfair is our high commercial property taxes.”

Branstad also fielded questions from several attendees including his plan for agriculture and residential property taxes, which are tied together. The governor said with his new plan, the amount subject to tax will increase by four percent per year for the foreseeable future and he believes that could become unmanageable.

Branstad cited Canada and China's high demand for agriculture products as reason to believe Iowa will have good commodity prices in the immediate future. Because of the growth, the maximum four percent amount subject to tax will apply to these properties. But the governor said he wants to lower that number to two percent.

“I think that's too much and if it were limited to two percent that's something people could manage,” he said. “We want to produce commercial property and make Iowa more competitive, but at the same time control agriculture and residential.”

When propositioned on why he doesn't split the agriculture and residential taxes into separate entities, Branstad said that would only create havoc.

“I doubt the rural legislatures would stand for something like that because that would mean a huge shift toward agriculture,” he said. “We don't want a civil war in this state.”