I want to begin my article this week by thanking the Lincoln County Farm Bureau for sponsoring a Town Hall Meeting a week ago Saturday to allow me to meet directly with interested constituents in an informal setting. I cannot begin to tell you how important it is for me to understand the issues that are important to you and to have the opportunity to share on a firsthand basis what is happening “behind the scenes” for many of the issues in the Nebraska Legislature. I hope to have the opportunity to hold more of these meetings throughout District 42 once the session ends.

Last week, the Appropriations Committee continued to move the budget bills forward. One of the items in LB1413 was a proposed cash transfer of $25 million to the “Rural Workforce Housing” fund. However, Senator Vargas from Omaha (who serves on the Appropriations Committee) worked with the committee to move $5 million of those funds to the “Middle Income Housing Fund.” The two funds are essentially the same, but the Middle-Income program is limited to the metro areas around Lincoln and Omaha, while the Rural Workforce program is available to all other areas of the state. However, Senator McKinney brought an amendment to equally split the funds between the two programs, which, in effect, reduced the Rural Workforce Fund by an additional $7.5 million. I pushed back hard on the amendment, but in the end, the vote was 24 in favor of the split and 23 opposed. The vote was a classic rural-urban divide. As I have warned in the past, when it comes to distributing funding, the urban areas have a voting advantage. That will only get stronger in the future if we cannot stop the outmigration of rural residents to urban areas.

I have continued to review LB126, which was introduced by Senator Jen Day. As introduced, The bill would provide a homestead exemption to Veterans and surviving spouses who are honorably discharged and disabled to receive a property tax credit based on their percentage of disability. Although I brought my own bill that provides for a more aggressive exemption (LB853) I did add my name to LB126 to help ensure that we get something done on this issue during this legislative session. Since Senator Day prioritized LB126, the Revenue Committee used her bill to carry the changes they are proposing to the Homestead exemption. Unfortunately, the Committee took portions of four bills that ended up making major changes to the entire Homestead Exemption Act and I believe that the changes proposed (outside of those proposed for Veterans) are taking us backwards. I am pushing to pass LB126 in its original form and do an interim study to fix the rest of the program. We will see where this goes.

The Revenue Committee moved their committee priority bill LB388 to General File last Thursday, just prior to adjournment for the long weekend. It will be formally introduced on Monday and debate will begin on Tuesday. I will be in North Platte on Monday for bank annual meetings but will return to the Legislature on Tuesday to be involved in the debate.

Although the details of the bill will not be fully available until the bill read across on Monday, I did get a private briefing from Senator Linehan. The proposal to remove the tax exemption for ag repair parts is not part of the bill, but the Committee did include sales tax on advertising for companies with annual gross advertising revenue greater than $1 billion (originally LB1354). Senator Albrecht has stated that the bill will target companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. I have many concerns with this provision from a constitutional standpoint based on the ongoing litigation to Maryland’s law, and I also believe that it would impact smaller businesses and advertising companies who advertise with or resell advertising through larger companies.

LB388 bill also would increase the cigarette tax to $1/pack and increase the state sales tax rate by 1%. These changes are estimated to raise $650 million to be used to offset property taxes. This plan, as I understand it, would increase foundation aid to schools to $3,000/student and increase the TEEOSA formula aid to larger school districts. It would also put “hard” caps on any property tax increases for schools, cities, and counties. It goes without saying that this bill will see a lot of debate, and could have some major changes prior to passage, so don’t read too much into the initial bill as introduced.

I look forward to continuing to hear from you regarding issues that are important to you. It is a privilege to serve as your Senator and I will continue to give my full effort to make a positive difference for the District and the State. You can reach me at mjacobson@leg.ne.gov or by calling my legislative office at 402-471-2729.