Budget: one of my least favorite words

By Lisa Sieren


No one likes to budget, especially me. In a grad school course on nonprofit management, I spent nearly as much time making the spreadsheet color-coordinated as I did making the budget balance (receiving gratitude from my professor for having a budget so easy to read). As much as I enjoy math, trying to stay in the black or at least end at zero when developing a budget is enough to make me scream.


Given the economic downtown and declining state revenues, setting the state budget is probably more than enough to make Iowa’s legislators throw up their hands in frustration. This is the time of session when Iowa’s lawmakers are finalizing state budgets, determining how your tax dollars will be spent. It is not easy—every budget decision made impacts Iowans, from how much funding goes to teacher professional development to the dollars spent at the workforce development center. And every decision must be weighed against other needs—can they afford to protect both workforce development and child care assistance for working parents?


Advocacy plays an important role in the budget development at the state, particularly in tough economic times. When revenue is down, where is the money going to come from to sustain programming or to fund worthy new programs? Potentially another program that no one is advocating for. With competing priorities, whoever is the most convincing and can show need the most will likely come out less scathed.


Over the past month, United Way has engaged in grassroots efforts to protect funding for Iowa Empowerment in the state education budget. Iowa’s Empowerment program helps children ages 0-5 access education, child care and health services they may not otherwise be able to access. In Central Iowa, Polk County Empowerment and United Way work closely together and target investments to ensure central Iowa children are ready for school. When the draft version of the state education budget was released, Empowerment had sustained funding cuts disproportionate to other line items in the budget,


Since the release of the first draft, United Ways and early childhood supporters across the state have been advocating for some of the funding for Empowerment to be restored. Until the final budget has been improved and signed, we won’t know for sure how Empowerment fares. Yet we do know that our voices have been heard—legislators have continuously commented on the volume of calls and emails they have received from constituents advocating for Iowa Empowerment.


As much as I grit my teeth while doing my personal budget, it is nothing compared to budgeting for an entire state. The quality of lives of Iowans depends on the very decisions made in state appropriations meetings, and I for one am not inclined to sit by when programs I support face disproportionate cuts. Are you?