The short session of the 102nd Legislature is wrapping up. This week will be crucial in knowing where we stand in regard to the budget. It will be interesting to see what the Governor will do on the budget and whether or not he will veto parts of it.

This session has been difficult because we are looking at a shortfall of up to $600,000,000.00 for the 2014-2015 fiscal year. It will be essential that we see significant growth to counteract this shortfall. If we do not see growth we will have to find new areas to cut spending to bring us into compliance with the Nebraska Constitution by balancing the budget.

This session will be concluding next week. We are having some issues getting through the entire agenda of bills because there have been a lot of questions and debate on a lot of bills. Some of the big issues this session have been LB970, the Governor’s tax cut package; the Appropriation Committee’s budget package; LB806, the historic Horse racing bill; and LB239, the voter ID bill. Each of these bills took a significant amount of time for debate with each of them having almost 8 hours of debate each.

We will know this week where we line up for the end of the session and what we will need to do to shore up the interim budget to prepare for next year.

Thank you for your support and for allowing me to serve as your Senator for the 47th district. I take great pride in representing you in the Nebraska Legislature.