Iowa House of Representatives literally burned the midnight oil last week as lawmakers try to wrap up the legislative session.

District 47 Representative Chip Baltimore says they worked until midnight Monday through Wednesday and until 8pm on Thursday debating mostly budget bills for the next fiscal year. The House passed their version of the budget for agriculture and natural resources, education, standings, transportation, economic development, public safety and justice departments.

However, Baltimore points out that he didn’t vote in favor of the proposed budgets for the transportation and education departments. The transportation budget proposed a $10 million increase in funding for salaries. Baltimore says there wasn’t enough additional funds to fulfill the request and he explains why else he voted against the budget bill.

“Because I thought there was a pretty massive disconnect between the Department of Transportation and the budgeting process that I thought needed to be cleaned up. I’ve got a lot of Department of Transportation employees that live in this district. Obviously I want to look out for them and make sure they are treated fairly and appropriately.”

He also didn’t vote in favor of the education budget that deals with community colleges, regents universities and the Area Education Agencies, due to unbalanced funding.

Baltimore adds that all budget bills they passed last week will go into conference committees before they are finalized.