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IOWA
CELEBRATES TAX FREEDOM DAY ON APRIL 18 TH !
Six out of
the ten states with the heaviest tax burdens and the latest Tax Freedom Days are
in the northeast: Connecticut (May 12), New York (May 9), New Jersey (May 6),
Massachusetts (May 2), Maine (May 1) and Rhode Island (May 1). The other four
are Washington (May 4), Minnesota (May 3), California (April 30) and Illinois
(April 30).
Many of these states are taxed the heaviest and celebrate Tax Freedom Day
later because of the progressive federal income tax. States with large
metropolitan areas offer higher-paying jobs, and as a result, many of the
citizens earn enough to pay income tax at the highest rates—currently 25%, 28%,
33% and 35%. As a result, they must work longer to pay their disproportionate
share of the tax burden. Maine stands out as the exception. Its total tax
burden is high despite low income and below-average federal taxes because of its
unusually high state-local taxes.
The ten states with the lightest total tax burdens celebrate Tax Freedom Day
the earliest. Alabama’s April 11 is the earliest of all. The next nine are
Alaska (April 12), Mississippi (April 13), Oklahoma (April 14), Tennessee (April
14), New Mexico (April 15), South Dakota (April 16), Montana (April 16), Idaho
(April 16), West Virginia (April 17) and Iowa (April 18).
In most of these states, Tax Freedom Day is early because of a large number of
low-income taxpayers who pay most of their federal income taxes at the lower
rates, 10% and 15%. Alaska stands out as an exception: income and federal tax
payments are above average there, but state-local taxes are extraordinarily low.
Click here to see
State and Local Tax Burdens by State, 1970-2006
IOWA WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT/ CIETC
SCANDAL: OVERSIGHT HEARINGS PART III
Bargman defends his salary…
Former Chief Operating Officer
(COO) John Bargman, with Attorney Charles Gribble in tow, met with the Joint
Government Oversight Committee on Thursday, April 13 in a marathon two-hour
discussion of his role in CIETC’s rise and fall. Bargman was quick to defend
his high salary and bonuses by detailing his years of experience
and expansive
oversight duties within the CIETC organization. Bargman is reported to have
been making close to $400,000 in the last 2 years. He wasn’t so quick to
discuss his educational background, however, which consists of 2 years in
college. Bargman’s duties spanned from accounting and book keeping to personnel
matters and awarding grants and/or funding for programs. When probed further on
how the bonus and salary system worked within the walls of CIETC he said he
relied solely on Ramona Cunningham |
to tell him who would
get the bonuses and how much they would receive. He then would work
the budget around whatever amount Ms. Cunningham provided. Bargman
claims to have had only one personnel review on his job performance
in the time he was employed at CIETC. This review was given by
Ramona Cunningham and Archie Brooks and he was never offered any
goals or performance standards to achieve his bonus’s other then the
goals that are set for each individual program he administers.
Bargman stated that everyone one of the CIETC employees received a
bonus and the schedule of the bonus was listed out in the
information provided to the committee by Bargman. According to the
documents provided, personnel may be given a bonus of no more then
15% per quarter. When questioned about the bonus schedule that he
and Cunningham had been receiving he then backpedaled and explained
that if your employment contract could specify for supplemental
bonuses.
Bargman, prior to his position at CIETC, worked for Iowa Workforce
Development and at one point was in a supervisory role over former
Deputy Director and Legislative Liaison Jane Barto. Bargman states
that he left the job at Workforce Development when Rich Running was
appointed Director and he wasn’t sure he would “fit in” with the
direction the agency was headed. He then moved to CIETC and took a
pay cut going from approximately $70,000 to $55,000.
Bargman openly confessed to his inability to “do numbers” and
claimed he relied solely on his Chief Financial Officer Karen
Tesdall to balance the books, even though his job title specifically
calls for his oversight of accounting and accounts payable, payroll,
IT management, projects, budgeting and anything Ramona Cunningham
told him to do concerning CIETC. In his own words Bargman said, “I
don’t do credits and debits well, I counted on my CFO to do all the
nitty gritty accounting work”. Bargman appeared before the
Government Oversight Committee on Wednesday, April 19, and will
appear at least one more time. On Tuesday, April 18, DHS Director
Kevin Concannon expressed his displeasure with the CIETC fiasco,
saying that the $200,000 in Promise Jobs funds that went to CIETC at
the end of a fiscal year for should not have been used for a “fire
sale” of salary bonuses, but instead should have been returned to
IWD and, ultimately, the TANF block grant fund. The money, which
stays with the state, would then have been available for eventual
re-appropriation by the General Assembly the following year – for
program services, salary/training needs or other purposes.
Concannon also said that under the department’s direct contracts
with local service providers, salaries paid by those providers are
limited to 110% of an equivalent state position. Meanwhile, the
Government Oversight committee is working diligently to put together
a Global Accountability bill that will address all state agencies as
well as quasi-state agencies practices concerning oversight and
auditing. Input has been taken from both parties in order to
further the bipartisan effort to assure that this type of abuse will
not occur at a state agency again. However, it appears that
Democrats are intent on using government accountability as a
political issue for the fall elections so it is uncertain if the
amendment they are drafting will be offered in good faith or simply
for political reasons.
Ways & Means
Update
Bills introduced in committee this week:
Bills passed out of committee
this week:
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