Chances are good the state will help pay for Cedar River flood-protection efforts if Linn County voters approve a local-option sales tax extension March 6, two legislators said today.

“I think there’s a real willingness to consider that,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal told The Gazette’s editorial board.  “Can I promise you a check by the end of March? No, probably not. But I think we have to be open to making the economies (of a flood protection plan) work.”

House support is similarly “very, very strong,” said Rep. Tyler Olson, D-Cedar Rapids. “I think there’s a consensus at the Legislature that the state should be a partner.”

While both lawmakers expect their colleagues will support a state role in Linn County’s flood recovery if county voters do, they said the session’s top issues will be reforms to commercial and industrial property taxes, education, and the delivery of services for mental health and the developmentally disabled.

Gronstal said lower commercial rates can’t come at the expense of local governments likely to pass the cost on to homeowners. He said Gov. Terry Branstad’s initial proposal would do just that.

“Over time, it is a tax shift from commercial to residential,” he said.  “Over 10 years, it’s clearly a tax shift.”

Olson said commercial and industrial tax-cutting should target sectors that create good-paying manufacturing jobs, not national chain retailers that would locate in Iowa cities or suburbs anyway.

“We should be concentrating on the property owners where that marginal difference makes a difference” in hiring decisions, Olson said. “Let’s focus on the people who are going to create jobs.”

Olson and Gronstal said they’re optimistic over the tone set in this session’s early weeks.

“This session started with everyone saying, ‘Let’s tone down the rhetoric,’” said Gronstal.

There’s been “more discussion about how to move some of these major policy pieces forward,” agreed Olson.