LINCOLN — Nebraska lawmakers will begin their 60-day legislative session in January with a larger projected deficit than the hole they just filled during the 90-day session this year.

The new projected deficit stands at roughly $471 million, as confirmed by Legislative Fiscal Analyst Keisha Patent during a meeting on Thursday of the Nebraska Legislature’s Tax Rate Review Committee. “I wish it was rosier, but we’ll figure it out,” said State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair, the committee’s chair, at the end of the meeting.

Lawmakers this spring grappled with a fluctuating deficit that at one point grew to $432 million. After some cuts, they ended the session with a projected surplus of about $4 million by the end of the biennium in 2027.

However, state senators left a structural deficit that would have grown to about $129 million by the end of the following biennium in 2029.

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