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September 29, 2009

Pat Murphy The Zope Gazette Tue Sep 29, 2009, 08:30 AM CDT

Des Moines — I met with Governor Culver and Lt. Governor Judge last week, in a previously-scheduled meeting that occurred shortly after news broke that there were problems in Iowa's Film Office. Culver agreed that he wanted to move quickly to get the film tax credit program back on track, while stressing that his first priority is to protect taxpayers' money. The film tax credit, which was greatly expanded this year, is intended to promote economic growth in Iowa communities and create jobs for Iowans.

But if tax credits were improperly approved, we need to ensure that every fiscal and legal course of action is taken against anyone who has abused this program. And we need to install safeguards to make sure this never happens again.

The Governor suspended the program until film office records and contracts can be sorted out. Several top officials at the Department of Economic Development (DED), which oversees the film office, have already been replaced. The director of the film office has been dismissed, and an interim director has been appointed. The Governor immediately asked Attorney General Tom Miller and State Auditor David Vaught to work with the Department of Revenue and Finance to review the film program to make sure that the "legislative intent is carried out and that the interests of Iowa's taxpayers are fully protected."

I concur with the decision of Rep. Vicki Lensing, chair of the House Government Oversight Committee, to let the Attorney General and State Auditor conduct their reviews of the film program, before bringing this issue to her committee. In the beginning stages of an audit, forcing auditors and investigators to report to a legislative committee would only slow them down and divert them from their immediate task.

> IOWA SCORES HIGH FOR BUSINESS

According to a new ranking from Forbes magazine, Iowa is the 14th best state to do business, up from 22nd in 2006. This comes on the heels of a July report from CNBC, a leading business network, which ranked Iowa the 4th best state for business in 2009, based on workforce, cost of business, quality of life, and other measurements. Through the work of folks like Rep. Roger Thomas of Elkader, chair of the House Economic Growth Committee, we've enacted a number of measures over the past several years to strengthen the economy and create good-paying jobs, and it appears those efforts are paying off.

Iowa now has 8,700 "green" jobs and the wind energy industry alone accounts for 2,300 of those jobs. Last session, we passed a $30 million expansion of the historic preservation program to help communities rebuild and restore historic buildings. We expanded state incentives to bring more high-tech jobs to Iowa, like Google and IBM. We also expanded training to build a highly-skilled workforce and enacted measures to help Iowans start small businesses.

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