As you may recall, I have written about the not-so-special legislative session in some of my recent articles. For the past week I have been researching the implementation of LB 34, the so-called property tax relief bill that was passed during the special session of the Legislature in August. As I have read and reread that legislation, it has become apparent to me that the legislature, including me, missed an important piece about how that bill would be implemented.

The special session started with the Governor’s proposal, which was LB1. I spent the better part of a day reading the 144 pages of that bill, making notes, and jotting down questions that I had about it. My work turned out to be a waste of time because before LB1 advanced to the floor it was changed with a completely new bill, LB9.

My staff and I were busy trying to understand the ramifications of LB9, which was 120 pages long, when it was suddenly withdrawn and replaced with yet another bill, LB34. LB 34 became the bill that would finally pass in the Legislature and make your property tax relief dollars go directly to the schools, so you would not have to claim the 30 percent credit any more on your income tax return.

When LB 34 was being debated on the floor of the Legislature, I failed to catch some very important language in the bill, which removed the opportunity for taxpayers to collect their 30 percent property tax rebate for the taxes they paid to the public schools for the year 2023. According to the language of the bill, property tax credits will no longer be available as of January 1, 2024.

Whether property owners paid their 2023 property taxes personally or through their escrow accounts in 2024, does not matter, because neither one will be able to collect the 30 percent property tax credit allotted to them for the year 2023.

The loss of those property tax credits will result in the State retaining the credit in the State’s general fund. Last year those property tax credits added up to $565 million. The State of Nebraska will now keep those property tax credits from 2023 and use that $565 million to fund the reduction in property taxes planned for 2024. So, those paying property taxes are funding their property tax relief for 2024 with their lost credit from 2023.

When I inquired about how the State of Nebraska intends to make up for these lost property tax credits from 2023, the response I received was not very convincing. The State wants the public to believe that the reduction in property taxes that will take place next year for the tax year of 2024 somehow makes up for the loss of the property tax credit that taxpayers were denied for their 2023 property taxes.

I spent several hours with the budget office trying to explain to them how the property tax credit for 2023 will be forever lost. They were not convinced. Because the State plans to keep the $565 million owed to the taxpayers from their 2023 property taxes, the taxpayers, unbeknownst to them, will be funding their own property tax reduction for 2024.

I regret that I did not catch this mistake before LB34 was passed in the Legislature during the special session. Nevertheless, when you file your income taxes next spring, be prepared, because you will not be able to claim the same 30 percent property tax credit that you have received in the past. So, your taxes for 2023 will be much higher than they were in 2022.

Removing the tax credit for 2023 amounts to a retroactive property tax increase. The State is increasing each person’s taxes in 2023 in order to give them a property tax decrease in 2024. There are only two ways to make the taxpayer whole again: The State could allow each taxpayer to claim the credit for their 2023 property taxes when they file their income tax return in 2025, or the State could double the discount in property taxes for 2024 to make up for the credit loss in 2023.

The goal of the not-so-special session was supposed to be about increasing property tax relief, not taking property tax relief away from those who were already getting it and giving it to those who weren’t.

Because the Nebraska State Legislature failed to pass any kind of meaningful and significant property tax relief during the special session, and because Nebraska now ranks as the second worst state in the nation for mortgage delinquencies, today I would like to inform the public about a significant development in the courts which now affects those with delinquent property tax liens.

According to Nebraska State Statute 77-1801, the properties of those with delinquent property tax bills can be sold or auctioned off to the highest bidder every year on the first Monday in March after the taxes become delinquent. Once the properties are sold and the back taxes are paid, the new owner of the property gets to keep the remainder of the equity in the home. Some have called this home equity theft and it has become a nightmare scenario for many elderly residents, the sick, and those who lose a job.

Such was the case for Kevin L. Fair of Scotts Bluff County. When Kevin’s wife, Sandra Nieveen, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, her condition required round-the-clock care. The Fairs couldn’t afford to hire anyone, so Kevin chose to quit his job and become his wife’s primary caregiver. The couple now had to live solely off of their Social Security checks. However, when their property tax statement came in, Kevin could not find a way to pay the $588 he owed to the County of Scotts Bluff.

In 2015 Continental Resources purchased the Fair’s tax debt and satisfied the tax debt to the county. Then, in 2018 the company sent Kevin a bill totaling $5,268 in overdue taxes, penalties, interest, and fees along with a notice to settle the debt within 90 days, otherwise, their $60,000 house would be sold to pay the debt. Naturally, Kevin couldn’t pay such an exorbitant amount of money, so he took it to court, where he lost in both the state court and in the Nebraska Supreme Court in 2022.

A similar situation had happened to Geraldine Tyler, who lived in Hennepin County, Minnesota. After her tax debt was sold, the tab on her original $2,300 tax statement ballooned to $15,000 after adding penalties, interest, and fees. However, when she sued Hennepin County, her case went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, who ruled in her favor last year.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment applies to these kinds of cases. Specifically, the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment states that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The nation’s highest court ruled that Hennepin County “could not use the toehold of the tax debt to confiscate more property than was due.” Commenting on the case, Chief Justice, John Roberts said, “The taxpayer must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but no more.” This decision is good news for homeowners who are struggling to pay their property taxes.

The U.S. Supreme Court directed those states with similar cases to revisit them. So, the Nebraska Supreme Court had to revisit and reverse their decision in the case of Continental Resources v. Kevin L. Fair. This time the Nebraska Supreme Court decided that Kevin Fair was entitled to the excess equity in his home; otherwise, the decision would constitute a violation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

I share this information with you today because I expect the property tax situation in Nebraska to grow much worse before it ever gets any better. Nebraskans need to know how to protect themselves against home equity theft, especially when the government allows it. No one ever has the right to take the excess equity that you have put into your home.

The not-so-special-session of the Legislature ended on Tuesday, August 20. Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City described the mood of the session by writing: “Unfortunately, the biggest scarcity seems to be the political courage to do what is right on behalf of the people.” Sen. Lippincott’s statement profoundly described exactly what happened during the special session of the Legislature, which ended without passing any kind of meaningful or significant property tax relief.

What the Legislature passed was not very original or new. It took 17 days for the Legislature to adopt a resolution which I had previously introduced as an amendment to another bill back in April. The reason I introduced that amendment was to help those who were not claiming their property tax credit on their income tax return. Back in April my amendment had received 23 votes, but it needed 25 to pass. Four months later and after 17 days of the most unorganized and confusing session I have ever been involved in, we passed the same amendment with 40 votes.

I knew back in April that passing that amendment would not stop property taxes from increasing. What the Legislature passed during the special session through LB34 amounts to nothing more than a slight decrease in the amount of the increase that taxpayers will see on their future property tax statements. While the amendment will help the 45 percent of property owners who have not been filing the necessary paperwork to get the property tax credit on their income tax returns, the credit itself has been available ever since LB1107 passed back in the year 2020, so it does not really count as property tax relief.

In addition to front loading the property tax credit already made available to the taxpayers since 2020, LB34 also placed a cap on local units of government. The cap applies to their budgets. The cap will restrict increases to zero or the inflation rate, whichever is higher; however, the cap may be overridden whenever there is a threat to public safety or by a vote of the people during the month of May in odd numbered years.

One issue that a lot of people don’t understand is how their property taxes pay for many requirements that the State has placed on local units of government. From time to time the State Legislature passes bills that force counties, cities, and schools to pay for things that the state does not pay for. These kinds of bills are called “unfunded mandates”. Unfunded mandates cost property owners hundreds of millions of dollars every year in the form of higher property taxes. Unfortunately, State Senators often do not take into consideration how these unfunded mandates will affect the taxpayers when it comes time to vote on the bill.

I was part of the working group that the Governor selected to work on property tax relief earlier this year. That group met seven times during the early summer months. It has been said that this committee almost unanimously agreed with the plan that the Governor introduced. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was never a time when a vote was taken, nor were the members of the working group ever asked if they agreed with the plan. There was no method for determining any kind of consensus. What the Governor came up with was his own personal plan. The Governor had been advised not to call for a special session until he had 33 votes to pass his plan in the Legislature. He ignored that advice and has now discovered the hard way that there are three separate coequal branches of government.

The Governor has the authority to call for a special session of the Legislature, but he has no authority to keep State Senators there. Earlier this spring the Governor had stated that he would continue to call for special sessions, even if it took until Christmas to get meaningful property tax relief. Now he is saying that unless he has the votes, he won’t call the State Senators back to the Capitol. Gov. Pillen stated many times that his goal was to deliver a 50 percent reduction in property taxes. The bill passed by the Legislature is only a three percent reduction and now he is calling that a great first step. In the final analysis, what the Legislature passed amounts to nothing more than a decrease in the amount of the increase.

As I write this article it is the 14th day of the Unicameral Legislature’s special session for property tax relief and it is still ongoing. 81 bills have been introduced during the special session to deal with taxes while 24 resolutions have been introduced to change the Nebraska State Constitution. Each one of these bills and resolutions has had a public hearing.

Most of these bills were referenced to the Legislature’s Revenue Committee. So, the members of the Revenue Committee combined several ideas from these bills into the Governor’s bill and advanced LB1 to the floor for debate. That bill was 144 pages long, and it did not have enough support to advance to the next round of debate on Select File. So, the members of the Revenue Committee went back to work over the weekend.

On Monday, August 12, the Revenue Committee amended their new plan into a bill by Sen. Jana Hughes of Seward. After several hours of debate on the floor LB9 also failed to garner enough support to advance to the next round of debate.

Finally, the Revenue Committee decided to scale back their proposal by amending yet another bill. This time they decided to amend their ideas into Sen. Tom Brewer’s bill, LB34. The strategy of amending a different bill enabled to Revenue Committee to avoid debating deleterious motions which had already been filed on previous bills.

The amendment to LB34 made two important changes. First, it front-loaded the property tax credit which had already been made available to taxpayers back in 2020 under LB1107. That bill had already allowed property owners to reclaim 30 percent of their property tax statement as a credit or refund on their state income tax return. However, many people were not claiming the credit because they did not know about it or they had difficulty filing the necessary paperwork. Once LB34 passes into law that tax credit will be automatically deducted from each property tax statement, eliminating the need for taxpayers to file the paperwork. Doing it this way makes much better sense for taxpayers who otherwise would have to pay their outrageous property tax bills and then wait six months for a refund.

Second, the bill places spending caps on the political subdivisions of the state. The Property Tax Growth Limitation Act contained in an amendment to the bill limits the levying authority of political subdivisions by capping any increases by zero or the inflation rate. Another amendment that was adopted into the bill allows a political subdivision to override the cap by holding a special election of the people during an odd numbered year in the month of May.

What is ironic to me is that I had introduced an amendment with these same ideas during the regular session of the Legislature earlier this year, but the Legislature failed to adopt it. At that time my amendment only had support from 23 State Senators, so it failed by only two votes. Had we adopted my amendment, the special session of the Legislature would not have been needed.

The bottom line is that while LB34 contains some good ideas, it will not deliver the kind of property tax relief that Nebraskans really need. The end result is that property taxes will continue to go up and LB34 will only give taxpayers a slight decrease in the amount that their property taxes will go up next year.

The EPIC Option Consumption Tax remains the best solution for Nebraska’s broken tax system, but it will be up to the people to put the measure on the ballot for the year 2026.

The Governor’s new property tax relief plan for the special session is in deep trouble. Last Thursday the Legislature voted to adjourn until Monday, August 12, in order to fix several problems in the bill and to garner more support for it. LB9 along with AM51 is getting tossed about like a wave of the sea without enough votes to get it passed. It is not my intention today to sink the Governor’s property tax relief bill; instead, I want to save it. Last Thursday I offered Nebraska State Senators a way to fix the Governor’s tax plan in order to make it work for Nebraska. Today I would like to share the three most important changes for fixing the Governor’s new tax plan.

The first item in the Governor’s new tax plan which needs to be fixed is the part which places a two percent excise tax on new agricultural and manufacturing equipment. Whereas the EPIC Option Consumption Tax would never tax business-to-business transactions, including agricultural and manufacturing equipment, the Governor’s plan does just that. It is always a mistake to tax necessary manufacturing and agricultural equipment.

Taxing agricultural equipment encourages farmers and ranchers to purchase their equipment in other states where taxes are cheaper. We call this phenomenon “border bleed”. Dealers located near border states with cheaper taxes on agricultural equipment would especially suffer from a loss of income as farmers and ranchers pass them by on the highway to purchase their equipment in other states.

The second item in the Governor’s new tax plan which needs to be fixed is the Tax Equity & Educational Opportunities Support Act (TEEOSA). TEEOSA is the program which provides state aid to public schools. Now is the best time to reform TEEOSA because the Legislature is working on major tax reform legislation and because several school districts will soon lose a portion of their state aid, which will result in significant increases in future property taxes. For example, in Fiscal Year 2024 the Bayard Public Schools, where I live, is set to lose $427,947 in state aid, while the Morrill Public schools will lose $587,030, and the Sidney Public Schools will lose $465,167. The last thing folks living in these school districts need is another increase in their property taxes and that is precisely what will happen if the Legislature does not fix TEEOSA now.

Nebraska needs to replace TEEOSA with a new program that would benefit all school districts across the State. The EPIC Option Consumption Tax bill (LB16) that I introduced for the special session already contains a comprehensive plan for replacing TEEOSA. I worked with three school district superintendents to create a new replacement plan for TEEOSA with simplified formulas that would benefit all school districts across the State. The Governor could fix TEEOSA simply by utilizing the plan already outlined in LB16.

The third item that needs to be fixed in the Governor’s new tax plan is to end our state’s dependence upon property taxes and income taxes. As the Creighton University economist, Ernie Goss, said when he testified before the Revenue Committee on the Governor’s new tax plan, “Sales taxes are the least regressive form of taxation.” Moreover, as the U.S. economy continues to transition towards a service economy, as opposed to a manufacturing economy, it will become increasingly more important and inevitable for states to begin taxing consumable services, and not just consumable goods.

Therefore, Last Thursday I suggested that we begin implementing the EPIC Option plan with the goal of taking the state income tax rate down to zero and the property tax rate also down to zero. By setting these rates at zero, the Legislature could avoid having to amend the State Constitution and these taxes could be reinstated by a vote of the people at any time in the future should the State ever experience a significant revenue shortfall.

On July 30 a public hearing was held at the State Capitol in Lincoln on LB 16. LB 16 is the latest and most updated version of the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, which I introduced for the special session of the Legislature. According to the Governor’s proclamation only bills which focus on property tax relief may be considered for the special session.

The public hearing was outstanding for the EPIC Option Consumption Tax. One member of the Revenue Committee commented afterwards that nearly 100 private citizens had come out to testify in favor of the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, while only two paid lobbyists bothered to show up in person to testify in opposition to it.

The online comments that were submitted on LB 16 had similar results. There were 85 proponents of the EPIC Option Consumption Tax compared to only nine opponents.

I am overwhelmed by the tremendous amount of support that the EPIC Option Consumption Tax received from the public at the hearing. Some concerned citizens drove as much as eight hours to testify for only three minutes before the members of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee. By both big numbers and by telling their own personal stories, these citizens made a huge impact on the committee members. No one could have sat through that hearing without being moved by the stories of taxpayers who were struggling to pay their property taxes.

One particular woman who testified in person at the hearing struggled to hold back her tears as she told her own personal story of how she had to make the very difficult decision to sell the family ranch. The ranch had been homesteaded by her grandfather and willed to her by her father back in 1994. However, by 2011 she could no longer afford to pay the property taxes and had to sell it.

Another woman who submitted an online testimony wrote about how she and her husband pay more in property taxes each year on their farmland than what they originally paid for the land back in 1989.

A landlord, whose property taxes have doubled within past ten years, testified online about how Nebraska’s property tax system is forcing him to evict seniors who live on a fixed income. He wrote, “It breaks my heart when a fixed income renter has to move out because they can’t afford to pay rent anymore.”

Without these kinds of pertinent testimonies, State Senators in Lincoln and Omaha would have little idea about the severity of the burden of our property tax system and the predicament that it is putting property owners in. More and more Nebraskans are finding themselves in the difficult position of having to decide whether or not they can afford to continue living in Nebraska.

Something has to be done immediately to stop the bleeding from our overburdening property tax system. On July 23 the National Mortgage News published a report of states where mortgage delinquencies are increasing the most. Nebraska now ranks at number two. The only state where mortgage delinquencies are rising at a faster pace than Nebraska is the state of Vermont. Moreover, the USDA continues to rank Nebraska as the third highest state for farm and ranch bankruptcies.

State Senators at the Capitol in Lincoln are finally getting the message that real tax reform is needed in Nebraska. It is my sincere hope and desire that the Unicameral Legislature will be able to pass legislation that will result in meaningful and significant property tax relief.

The special session of the State Legislature has now begun. The first three days of the session were devoted to bill introduction. Gov. Pillen introduced his property tax relief plan first. I followed him shortly thereafter with the introduction of four pieces of legislation for the EPIC Option Consumption Tax. Today I would like to provide readers with my own analysis of the Governor’s property tax relief plan by comparing it to the EPIC Option Consumption Tax plan.

The Governor’s property tax relief plan should be called “EPIC Light”. I say this because the Governor’s property tax relief plan follows a similar path as the EPIC Option Consumption Tax but falls short of doing all that the EPIC Option Consumption Tax does. For example, the Governor’s plan eliminates sales tax exemptions on services (EPIC charges no tax on business services), funds public schools through the State, and recognizes the need to reform the Tax Equity & Educational Opportunities Support Act (TEEOSA), three important changes also made by the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, but there are also several differences between the two plans.

The Governor’s property tax relief plan differs from the EPIC Option Consumption Tax in some very important ways and falls short of doing what Nebraska’s taxpayers need from a comprehensive tax reform plan. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two plans relates to taxing agricultural inputs. Because the EPIC Option Consumption Tax never taxes an item twice, the consumption tax is only ever applied at the point of retail sale to the consumer. This means that business-to-business transactions never get taxed. However, Governor Pillen’s plan would tax agricultural inputs, such as the purchase of a new tractor, a new baler, or a new irrigation system.

Another difference between the two plans is that the Governor’s plan allows school districts to retain their tax asking authority by capping levy increases at five percent. In contrast, the EPIC Option Consumption Tax eliminates the property tax altogether. Allowing school districts to retain their property tax asking authority likely means that any tax relief Nebraskans might enjoy from the Governor’s tax plan would be temporary and short-lived. Within a few short years after the State implements the Governor’s tax plan, property taxes would be right back where they are today, and that’s not what I consider to be real property tax relief.

The Governor’s property tax relief plan lacks a complete and coherent distribution plan for school funding. While the Governor’s plan contains a fund and a formula for distributing revenues back to school districts, it lacks a plan for regulating how school districts write their budgets, additional funding for the construction of new school facilities, and a mechanism for planning for future growth, all of which the EPIC Option Consumption Tax provides in detailed form.

The Governor’s plan fails to reform the TEEOSA formula. Instead, the Governor’s bill simply recognizes the need to reform the TEEOSA formula. Stated in this way, the Governor is pushing his work off onto others to do for him. Under the Governor’s plan a future Legislature would have to do the heavy lifting and decide how to reform the TEEOSA formula. The current TEEOSA formula favors school districts in Nebraska’s urban centers. By way of contrast, the EPIC Option Consumption Tax team worked with three school superintendents to create a new school equalization formula that would work for all school districts across the state, including small school districts in rural areas of the state.

I share these differences between the Governor’s tax reform plan and the EPIC Option Consumption Tax plan in order to demonstrate how broken our current tax system really is. The current tax system cannot be fixed, and that is what the Governor’s plan tries to do. Instead, Nebraska needs a fresh new start with a tax plan that works. Passing the Governor’s tax plan in its current form would be like waking up from surgery in the recovery room only to hear the surgeon say that he removed half of the cancerous tumor in your body. Nebraska’s current tax system is cancerous, and the time has come to remove the whole tumor, and that is precisely what the EPIC Option Consumption Tax does.

Two ballot measures will appear on your ballot in November which would legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. The first initiative would make it legal for physicians to prescribe medical cannabis, while the second initiative would regulate the dispensing of the drug. The reason for two separate ballot initiatives has to do with the single subject rule stipulated in the Nebraska State Constitution, which states in Article III, Section 2 that “Initiative measures shall contain only one subject.”

Medical marijuana is not medication. Medical marijuana covers such a wide range of applications that it defies the nature of what a medication is supposed to be. There is a clear difference between medication and medical marijuana. Medications isolate specific compounds or active ingredients in order to treat certain medical conditions, such as epilepsy or multiple sclerosis. Medications are subject to extensive testing, endure clinical trials for safety and efficacy, and are often subject to public hearings before they are ever approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Medications are closely regulated and are distributed according to dosages in milligrams. Medical marijuana would not be subject to any of this.

Medical marijuana is recreational marijuana disguised as medication. Medical Marijuana dispensaries would sell products such as vaporizers, edible candies, oils, tinctures, and patches, which all lack uniform dosing specificity. Levels of THC and CBD often differ greatly between cannabis products, batches, and dispensaries. Patients need to know what they are consuming. They also need to be assured that what they are consuming is safe and effective. Physicians, likewise, need to have confidence that the drug they are prescribing will work as they intend it to work. Pharmaceutical companies have already discovered cannabis derived medications which can treat diseases like epilepsy without the need for dispensaries or these kinds of unregulated recreational marijuana products.

Marijuana impairs driving. Last Thursday the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its final report on a March 22, 2022 collision between the 16-year-old driver of a Chevrolet Spark hatchback who was using marijuana and a gravel-hauling semi-truck in the small town of Tishomingo, Oklahoma. In that report, the NTSB stated that “…marijuana decreases motor coordination, slows reaction time, and impairs judgment of time and distance, all critical functions for driving.”

The Oklahoma incident is important because recreational marijuana remains illegal in that state while medical marijuana is legal. NTSB Chairwoman, Jennifer Homendy, went on to warn folks in Oklahoma about the dangers of driving under the influence of marijuana. In states where some form of marijuana use is legal, people oftentimes make the mistake of assuming that it is safe and legal to drive while impaired by the drug.

Traffic safety must come first. Jennifer Homendy went on to say, “Unfortunately, I think state laws that are legalizing recreational and medicinal use of marijuana have come before thoughts or action on what they are doing about traffic safety…They are far ahead on legalizing it, but very behind when it comes to traffic safety.” Drivers need to have confidence that other drivers they meet on the road are not going to be impaired by marijuana.

These are just a few of the many reasons why I stand against the legalization of medical marijuana. I encourage you to vote against these two initiatives when you see them on your ballot in November.

I imagine that most readers are expecting me to write this week about the upcoming special session of the State Legislature. The Governor has not yet formally called for a special session of the Legislature and his plan for property tax relief remains under construction. When news becomes available, about a special session or about his plan for property tax relief, I will be sure to let the readership know.

I am committed to keeping the folks of Western Nebraska informed about state news. When it comes to state news, Western Nebraska is a kind of news desert. Many readers of my weekly column seldom ever receive news from the eastern part of the state. By the time folks living in the Panhandle receive news from Lincoln it has oftentimes already become history and is no longer even considered news.

Today I would like to inform you about the recent outstanding work of our State Auditor, Mike Foley. The job of the State Auditor is to analyze the financial records of our state agencies and to hold them accountable for how they spend taxpayers’ dollars. Mike Foley is the right man for this position. I have known Mike Foley for nearly 25 years. I first met him when he was a State Senator. He and my son, Philip, shared an office together at the State Capitol in Lincoln for two years.

Foley did an excellent job representing his district in Lincoln as well as the people of Nebraska when he served as a State Senator. For the first six years of my tenure as a State Senator, Foley served as the Lieutenant Governor of the State, where he presided over the State Legislature. Following his eight-year service as the Lieutenant Governor, he was elected to the office of State Auditor of Public Accounts in 2022. Foley may be the best State Auditor that Nebraska has ever seen!

Two years ago, Gov. Pillen had recommended that the State Legislature reduce the State Auditor’s budget by $250,000. The State Legislature ultimately decided against it, and that decision has proved to be one of the wisest decisions that the State Legislature has ever made. I say this, because Foley has recovered many times more than the Governor’s proposed budget cut of $250,000. Foley is a budget hawk who continuously uncovers how state agencies are misappropriating and abusing our state’s tax dollars, and today I would like to share a couple of examples of how he did this last week.

In a press release last Tuesday Foley identified millions of dollars which were improperly paid out by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to child care providers through the NFOCUS Aid Payments Program. While participating in the childcare subsidy program, Foley said, “many of those providers took full advantage of the agency’s lax oversight and successfully bilked DHHS out of payments far in excess of those to which they were entitled.” Foley uncovered approximately $12.8 million in fraudulent billings that were paid out by DHHS over a nine-month period between 2023 and 2024.

Then, on Thursday of last week, Foley released another report showing how the Nebraska Board of Parole has been using state vehicles for personal use. The report identified 12 employees of the Nebraska Board of Parole who used state vehicles for a combined total of 291 unapproved trips. Foley uncovered the abuse of state vehicles by analyzing GPS data that the Nebraska Board of Parole allegedly never received. One staff member in particular used a state vehicle to travel 200 miles to attend a retirement party. Using a state vehicle for personal use is classified as a misdemeanor under Nebraska State law.

Cutting out fraudulent and wasteful spending is important. The work of the State Auditor is necessary to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being wasted. There remains a lot more work that needs to be done at the state level to weed out fraudulent and wasteful spending, but please know that we have a good man at the helm who is doing this work on behalf of the Nebraska taxpayers.

Today it is with great disappointment that I must report that the EPIC Option Consumption Tax team did not meet the required signature count to place our two initiatives for constitutional amendments on the November general election ballot. While the team met the first goal of securing signatures from at least five percent of registered voters in 38 counties, the team fell short of the second requirement of securing signatures from ten percent of the registered voters statewide.

I would like to express my gratitude to the many volunteers who worked tirelessly with determination and self-sacrifice in order to put these two ballot initiatives on the November ballot. In order to meet the second requirement, these volunteer petition circulators needed to acquire a total of 123,190 valid signatures. That is a nearly impossible feat to accomplish without paid circulators. The last time that an all-volunteer team managed to place a ballot initiative on the ballot for the general election was back in 1966!

The fact that our volunteer circulators met the first requirement of securing valid signatures from five percent of registered voters in more than 38 counties represents an enormous accomplishment for the EPIC Option Consumption Tax team and the volunteer circulators who did the work. This fact alone ought to show the most ardent skeptics of the EPIC Option Consumption Tax how much Nebraskans are suffering under the current tax code and why it needs to be changed. There is no question that the EPIC Option Consumption Tax team would have met both constitutional requirements for the two petition drives with the help of paid circulators. Moreover, had the county assessors published their 2024 valuation increases in March instead of in June, I believe we would have met both constitutional requirements with our team of volunteer circulators.

What is most disappointing is that Nebraskans will have to continue to live and work under our state’s broken tax system. Going forward, we will continue to allow government leaders to pick winners and losers through TIF financing and the ImagiNE Nebraska Act. Nebraska will also continue to lose more population to other states. Nebraska will continue to suffer from brain-drain as our graduating college students choose to settle down in other states, our retirees move to more tax friendly states, and farmers and ranchers are forced to either sell their properties or file for bankruptcy because they can no longer afford to pay their property taxes.

The EPIC Option Consumption Tax team is not the only loser today. Those groups who spread misinformation about the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, such as the State Chamber of Commerce, the League of Municipalities, Farm Bureau, the Open Sky Institute, No New Taxes Nebraska and even U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts have suffered irreparable damage to their reputations. These organizations and individuals helped spread the false propaganda that the EPIC Option Consumption Tax would require a rate of 22 percent and result in a $5.5 billion deficit to the State of Nebraska despite clear and indisputable evidence to the contrary.

Despite this enormous loss, I and the other members of the EPIC Option Consumption Tax team remain optimistic about the future of the EPIC Option Consumption Tax. It is inevitable that Nebraska will move in the direction of a consumption tax. Although the team failed to get the ball into the endzone this year, we successfully moved the ball down the field and into the red zone. I believe we are now within scoring distance. I say this because the plan that Gov. Pillen has been floating for property tax relief looks an awful lot like EPIC light. Much like the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, the Governor now wants to fund all public schools through the state.

The EPIC Option Consumption Tax team is not going away. The team will regroup and explore their options for the future. Nebraska still has a serious tax problem, which the Governor and State Senators can no longer ignore. Whatever becomes the plan, it cannot be a simple tax shift; instead, it must reduce the overall tax burden that Nebraskans face.