At this time, I’m happy to report that covid-19 vaccines are available to all Nebraskans 16 and older either through their county health department, participating pharmacies, and Public Health Solutions in Fillmore, Gage, Jefferson, Saline, and Thayer counties. I extend my thanks to Public Health Solutions for all their work and their successful rollout of the vaccination drive. Getting your vaccine is not a reason to let you guard down as Covid-19 cases are trending upward with new variants present so I encourage you to abide by CDC’s updated recommendations for staying healthy. 

Last week, the Appropriations Committee released the proposed biennial budget. It is an almost 300 page document and took up 2 days of debate. One of, if not THE most important, issue for my constituents is property tax relief so I would like to highlight that aspect of the budget. 

The Property Tax Credit Fund will go up by $63 million (from $275 to $300-313 million) over the next two years, which is the second largest increase in the budget. That is split up to $25 million in FY21-22 and $38 million in FY22-23. The Property Tax Incentive Act, included as part of LB1107 enacted in August 2020, starts from a fixed amount of $125 million and will go up to almost $314 million the next two fiscal years, which is a two and a half times increase, meaning your refundable tax credit should be that much bigger. And the Homestead exemption will have a 3% increase each of the next two years which works out to an extra $3.2 million in FY21-22 and $5.3 million in FY22-23. In addition to all of this, when gaming starts in Nebraska you can expect at least another two to three percent of relief.

Another part of the budget I want to point out is the service provider rate increase. The single largest increase in the proposed budget is a 2% per year increase in DHHS and juvenile service providers amounting to an $83.5 million increase over the two fiscal years. This also includes funds for other DHHS programs including behavioral health aid, SCHIP, Medicaid and a few others. This will help our local nursing homes.

In a normal year, some of us would be scrambling to finish our taxes by April 15th but due to the coronavirus, the tax deadline for state and federal taxes has been extended to May 17th, which comes as a relief to some of us. 

Finally, a notice to owners of unclaimed property. The 2020 Unclaimed Property Report is out. This includes items such as bank accounts, contents of safe deposit boxes, wages, insurance benefits, security deposits, stock dividends and other funds that remain unclaimed for three years or more. To check if you might have unclaimed property, go to nebraskalostcash.nebraska.gov or call 402-471-8497 or 877-572-9688.