This week I will continue talking about the bills that either passed or failed in this legislative session. One that passed was LB 147. The Governor correctly vetoed the bill, but the legislature voted to override his veto. I voted against the bill.  LB 147 is a very bad idea for the taxpayers of Nebraska.  Let me explain.

The Omaha Public Schools (OPS) pension system is in trouble. LB 147 is a bill designed to bail-out this pension fund by merging it into and transferring the management of the School Employees Retirement System to the Public Employees Retirement Board. This bill will eventually make the State of Nebraska responsible for all the liabilities in the OPS pension fund. 

This is taxation without representation. A citizen in Cherry County, for example, shouldn’t have their income and sales tax dollars used to bail-out a school district they have absolutely no control over. District 43 voters cannot vote in the election of the board members who made these bad decisions. I think the veto override vote is a good indicator of just how much money and power the education lobby has in our legislature.  

One of the legislature’s rules stipulates that a bill cannot “bind the hands of a future legislature.” I think LB 147 breaks this rule. There are $848 million dollars of unfunded liabilities in the OPS pension system and the people of Nebraska are going to get stuck with the tab. As written, future legislatures will not have a choice and will be forced to pay that enormous bill.  

It’s worth considering that nationally, about forty percent of K-12 public education is paid for with property taxes. In Nebraska, that number is greater than sixty percent, and many rural school districts are over seventy percent. My resolution (LR13CA) which would have  proposed a constitutional amendment that would limit to 33 percent of how much a school district could use property taxes to fund its operations. The liberal-controlled education committee indefinitely postponed (killed) LR13CA because they knew if it was ever put on the ballot and left up to the people to decide, it would pass.

If LR13CA had passed, the other 66 percent of the funding for public schools would have to come from the general fund. The legislature would have to find about $670 million dollars to make up the difference. This money would go directly into the pockets of the property tax payers of the whole state of Nebraska. Instead, we’re going to give at least $848 million to a single school district’s mismanaged pension fund. Which one is more important to you?  I believe LB 147 takes away our ability to deliver property tax relief.  

The education lobby spends millions of dollars on campaigns to make sure there are never enough votes to limit how much property taxes our Nebraska schools can levy, collect and spend. A review of the mandatory filings at the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission is a real eye-opener. Does this money directly translate into green lights (votes) on the big board that tallies the Senator’s votes? Nebraskans need to pay close attention to what their elected representatives are doing in their name.