It was a week of dealing with major issues at the Nebraska Legislature. Many of the bills right now require a lot of attention and lengthy debate. This is a good thing, as it demands we look at the details and the implications of both bills and amendments. But it does make for long days.

State Budget and Correctional Facilities

On Tuesday, we passed the set of bills comprising the state’s $9.7 billion biennial budget. This final step went smoothly with no amendments and the bills are now awaiting signature by the Governor. The budget is the one form of bill over which the Governor can exercise a line item veto. He has five calendar days not counting Sunday to sign the bills.

The Capital construction portion of the budget garnered the most discussion during debate. Originally, Appropriations had set aside $115 million in a Capital Construction Fund for building a proposed new prison facility, but with no appropriation to spend it. From that $115M set-aside in the capital construction fund we passed an amendment that allocated $18 million for the Lincoln Reception and Mental Health Treatment Center to add 96 beds, as that is one of the most overcrowded of the correctional facilities.The amendment also allocated $14.9 million for land easement, planning, and design for the proposed 1500 bed facility.  A second amendment added on select file has another $15 million to be set aside in a Prison Overcrowding Contingency Fund; of that only $200,000 is allocated for a state study on inmate classification. The balance of this $15 million is not yet authorized to be spent. I definitely hope the state study, and a federal one, will give us concepts we can implement to help with overcrowding; and not just through building more space, but also to make progress in prison overcrowding and sentencing reforms. We haven’t done as much as we could to enact those and once we are back to normal after the pandemic, many people believe we will see an increase in overcrowding again.

Property Tax

Not surprisingly, the topic of property tax was debated at length this week. One senator noted that property tax shows up in the histories of all the past legislative sessions that he has seen, this one is no exception.

Earlier in the week, Sen. Briese brought LB 2.  Presently ag land is valued at 69-75% for school bonds. Originally the bill lowered agricultural land to 30% of valuation, but was amended to 50% of valuation and only on future bond projects. LB 2 as introduced, also increased the property tax credit fund by 3% per year, but that section was removed through an amendment from Sen. Groene.

LB 408 was also introduced by Senator Briese, and creates the Property Tax Request Act. The act would basically make it so a political subdivision’s property tax request for any year would not exceed the prior year’s property tax request by more than 3%, with some exceptions. The Revenue Committee amended the bill so that: request authority would be equal to the political subdivision’s tax request from the prior year multiplied by 103%, a board could go over the 3% limit for no more than two consecutive years, and could not exceed 9% over a 3-year period. The limit would not apply to the real growth value of the political subdivision. When the bill came up on the agenda, 20 amendments had already been offered, which demonstrates the vast divide in opinions on this matter.  

In LB 408, I see not only the 3% as a cap, but also as a floor. If you leave some of that 3% amount out there, you don’t get the opportunity to use it at some other time. Schools, and some counties and cities, have talked to me about how it would affect them going forward, especially if some of their costs are not met through enough funding from the state. While some entities, schools, cities and counties, have done a great job with not raising the property tax growth by more than 2%, others have at times exceeded 10% or more; even 22% in one year in the case of one community college. Generally, there is usually a good reason for that, but not always. 

As an example of what concerns many senators as we go forward, property valuations in Lincoln have been projected to go up 10% in the next year. If Lincoln Public Schools stay at the $1.05 levy, and your valuation goes up by 10% your school property taxes will then also go up by 10%. At the same time because Lincoln would now have more ability to pay with their increase in property taxes, their TEEOSA (state school funding formula) amount will go down, giving LPS no incentive to reduce the levy. Similarly, this is what happened with farm land, when it went up 15% in value, the effective amount of property tax did as well. Some entities held the line on tax request and spending or even reduced their tax asking.  Some did not, it was available and they used it. 

Another concern with a 3% limit is that if the rate of inflation is greater than 3%, it will be extremely difficult for schools and counties to keep up with salaries and benefit costs.  In the end, much of this comes back to school funding. Sen. DeBoer of Omaha has a bill, LB132, to set up a commission to review school funding and come back by December with recommendations on how to improve or change the tax structure and funding for education. LB 132 is waiting for first round debate. After eight hours of deliberation on LB 408 and around 25 total amendments filed, it failed on a cloture vote and is likely done for the session.

Law Enforcement Training

Another timely topic this week was Sen. Lathrop’s LB 51, which resulted from two days of hearings in Lincoln and Omaha last summer. About 200 people testified at those hearings, prompting Sen. Lathrop and the Judiciary Committee to write this bill, along with input from agencies across the state. LB 51 would make several changes to law enforcement certification, training, and policies. Standards for hiring law enforcement officers would be more strict and additional training hours would be required, including de-escalation, human behavior and mental health, substance abuse, people in crisis, and anti-bias and implicit bias instruction. The bill would require every law enforcement agency to have a policy for accepting and investigating complaints of officer misconduct. There would also be a prohibition on the use of chokeholds unless deadly force is authorized. Most law enforcement agencies agreed that more training is a benefit to both the officers and the public. 

In floor debate on LB 51, Sen. Brewer led a discussion about smaller departments who have a hard time finding people to hire; the extra training this would require, and how to get it done. For example, sending officers away for training might leave no one on duty. Sen. Brewer said he has a couple of counties with only one law enforcement officer. Sen. Brewer and Sen. Lathrop have agreed to work out an amendment that will be better for the state’s smaller law enforcement departments, including Gage county. This bill advanced to the next round on a 39-0 vote. 

In the next two weeks, the Legislature will take up revenue and spending bills. My priority bill, LB 103, which would get some state help in paying off a federal judgment for Gage County, will be on the agenda for debate in that time frame. Please contact me with any questions or concerns at mdorn@leg.ne.gov or call 402-471-2620 at any time.