This week I will have public hearings on three of my bills. Today I would like to introduce you to those bills and present my reasons for introducing them.

On February 19 I will have a public hearing on LB161. This is a bill to eliminate the Learning Community. The Learning Community offers early childhood education, family engagement, and educational preparation programs to children and families in Douglas and Sarpy counties. Although the Learning Community does not directly affect folks living in Nebraska’s Panhandle, it has become a scourge in Douglas and Sarpy counties with a vision to expand across Nebraska.

The Learning Community has lost sight of its purpose and has devolved into an organization in search of a mission. The Learning Community’s board has abandoned its original purpose, they have started their own private foundation, they have wasted tax-payers dollars, and they have inadvertently driven private businesses and charity organizations out of Omaha’s inner city neighborhoods. For these reasons and more, the Learning Community needs to be terminated and replaced with a better program with proven results.

On February 21 I will have a public hearing on LB386. LB386 is a bill to correct the relationship between taxes levied and cash reserves. The bill will cap the cash reserves of local units of government with tax asking authority at fifty percent of their annual operating budget.

The reason for this bill is to prevent the abuse of cash reserves. Some local units of government have abused their tax asking authority by accumulating egregious amounts of cash reserves at the expense of the tax-payers. This bill will prevent this kind of abuse from recurring in the future. There simply is no reason why any local unit of government with tax asking authority needs cash reserves in excess of fifty percent of their annual operating budget.

On February 21 I will have another hearing on LB483. LB483 is my priority bill for 2019. The bill will change the way agricultural land gets valuated for property tax purposes. LB483 will change agricultural land valuations from the current market based system to a productivity based system.

LB483 is needed because the current market based system has never valuated agricultural land in a fair and equitable way. In most cases the current market based system valuates agricultural land upon one percent of sales in the county. Oftentimes hunting groups or other special interest groups will pay exorbitant prices for land which drives up agricultural land values across the county. The result has been that agricultural land valuations have risen beyond the level where many landowners can continue to farm or ranch in Nebraska.

LB483 will change the way we value agricultural land to a productivity based system. The bill will tie agricultural land valuations to the soil productivity ratings provided by the National Resources Conservation Service. The bill will also create the Agricultural Land Valuation Board, which will be charged with the task of setting the discount rate and creating a manual for county assessors to use when valuating agricultural land.