Lawmakers of BOTH parties are expressing concerns about staffing levels in state public safety agencies, but Republicans on a House committee have approved what they’re calling “status quo” funding for Iowa’s justice system which covers the highway patrol, prisons and the state crime lab. Representative Gary Worthan, a Republican from Storm Lake, says there’s no extra money to hire more troopers or crime scene investigators. “Not to try and gloss it over or anything, this is kind of holding our own in the Department of Public Safety,” Worthan says. “We’re not going to be able to increase numbers.”

In most cases, the agencies would receive about as much money as was planned for the current year, before a round of budget cuts last month. Representative Chris Hall, a Democrat from Sioux City, says the state prisons, in particular, are understaffed. “It’s endangering some of our state workers,” Hall says. “It’s endangering our taxpayers and families across the state.”

The House G-O-P’s state budget plan is drafted around a tax cut of 100-million dollars. Republicans in the Senate have proposed significantly deeper tax cuts.

(Radio Iowa, w/Reporting by Iowa Public Radio’s Joyce Russell)