LINCOLN - The Nebraska Board of Pardons has held only seven hearings in more than 2½ years, and has granted only 21 pardons, despite the board receiving close to 500 petitions.
No hearing has taken place since July, which means no pardons granted or denied in six months.
Compare that to 2013 and 2014, when seven hearings were held each year and more than 200 pardons granted.
View the article HERE
KEARNEY — Things were going to be different this time.
With $42 million in new, shiny facilities that someone else owned and a dependable revenue source in proceeds from the state lottery, the Nebraska State Fair was supposed to be on firm financial footing.
And for several years, that was true.
In 2010, the year the fair was first held in Grand Island, it attracted 310,000 visitors, a number that had grown to 380,000 by 2017.
For each of the first eight years the fair was held at Fonner Park, it reported a six-figure profit.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN - Juvenile legal representation. Once again, a bill that would require that juveniles have legal representation at their first court appearance failed to advance.
Legislative Bill 231, introduced by State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln, has been defeated in the past. The bill also included a $1 increase in state court fees to pay for the lawyers’ work.
View the article HERE
OMAHA - Much of the Midwest will head into spring with wetter-than-usual soil and several rivers and streams running higher than normal. But a repeat of last year’s flooding is not a guarantee, according to a newly released report.
Odds favor a normal to wetter-than-normal February through April across much of the Upper Missouri River basin, which is north of Nebraska, according to the latest 2020 Winter Outlook.
View the article HERE
OMAHA - TD Ameritrade’s first earnings report in the era of 0% commissions shows why the brokerage is now poised to merge with competitor Charles Schwab: The Omaha firm’s trading revenue and net earnings are both down sharply.
During the quarter that ended Dec. 31, TD Ameritrade’s trading revenue dropped 43% from a year earlier, from $537 million to $305 million. That helped depress earnings to 70 cents per share in Tuesday’s report, down from $1.07 the previous year.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN — A legislative plan that backers called “revolutionary” and “thinking outside the box on steroids” would eliminate all current state and local taxes in Nebraska.
In their stead, Legislative Resolution 300CA would require that a consumption tax be imposed on all new goods and all services purchased in the state.
State Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard introduced the proposed constitutional amendment on Thursday, during the last hour of the last day of bill introduction for this year. He was joined by nine co-sponsors, including six similarly conservative Republicans and three Democrats.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN - Flood preparation task force. In the wake of the disastrous 2019 floods, State Sen. Bruce Bostelman of Brainard introduced a bill Thursday that could create a statewide task force aimed at making Nebraska better prepared for future flood threats.
Legislative Bill 1201 calls for the group to look at a number of topics, including looking for opportunities to mitigate the impact of floods, identifying gaps in recovery programs, finding ways to move people out of high-risk areas and studying current flood plain management programs.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN - The state would set aside up to 1% of its annual tax revenue, about $50 million a year, for economic development projects in excess of $1 billion under Legislative Bill 1084, the Transformational Projects Act.
The bill, introduced by State Sen. Mark Kolterman of Seward, would be the vehicle to obtain $300 million in state funding, over six years, for the proposed NExT Project at the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus in Omaha.
View the article HERE
SARPY COUNTY - Driving west on Interstate 80 from Omaha, you will find only a single interchange between the one at Nebraska Highway 370 and the Platte River — a distance of almost 11 miles.
That’s not enough to handle the growing population in southern and western Sarpy County, local officials say. So they’re planning for two new interchanges to accommodate the new homeowners and retail traffic that they hope will come with the growth.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN - The longest-serving current member of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents announced Monday he would not seek a fourth term.
Howard Hawks, who in 2002 won his first election to the District 2 seat representing a portion of Douglas County and nearly all of Sarpy County, said 2020 will mark his final year as a regent.
"Nearly 20 years ago, I ran for regent because I believe Nebraska's economic future is directly linked to a strong university system," Hawks said in a statement.
View the article HERE
OMAHA - Current Omaha Public Schools retirees and employees would see lower cost-of-living adjustments, newly hired employees would get less generous pensions and the school district would kick in more money annually under a new plan for shoring up the district’s troubled pension fund.
The proposal was hashed out by a working group made up of members of the district’s unions, OPS leaders, retirees and others who spent a year looking for ways to reduce the system’s $800 million-plus shortfall, which was the subject of a World-Herald investigation last year.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN — A massive $2.6 billion proposal to transform the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus may hinge on state funding, as well as commitments from the City of Omaha and Douglas County.
Medical center officials told The World-Herald that they’re asking for a $300 million commitment from the State of Nebraska — as well as hundreds of millions from private donors and some money from the city and county — for a public-private partnership able to win federal funding of perhaps $1.5 billion.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN - The Nebraska Department of Corrections is telling employees it will soon issue a policy that will outline how they can communicate with state senators and their staffs, in meetings or hearings.
Some Corrections staff have already been contacted by lawmakers since the session started last week, an email from Corrections Chief of Staff Laura Strimple said. They want information from employees related to legislative initiatives, or they may be asking them to testify at upcoming hearings that begin next week.
The department's policy is still being developed, but Strimple said that going forward, any requests from senators or their staff should be authorized by Corrections Department administration before employees respond to lawmakers. "In addition, permission must be provided by Director (Scott) Frakes before any staff member testifies on behalf of NDCS," the email said.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN — With extra revenue to spend this year, Gov. Ricketts used his State of the State address to outline his approaches for lowering the state's traditionally high property taxes and reversing the state's workforce shortage. The governor also thanked first responders, state workers and everyday citizens who jumped in to help when Nebraska was swamped by flooding last March. He called it the state's "finest hour."
"When we were faced with the most widespread and costliest natural disaster in state history, Nebraskans responded with heroic grit, determination, resilience and generosity," Ricketts said. Property tax relief, repairing flood damage, improving the state's economy and addressing some deficiencies in social services took center stage in his speech, his sixth State of the State since being elected in 2014.
"I think he hit the mark on all of the top priorities of the state," said State Sen. John Stinner of Gering, who heads the Legislature's budget committee.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN - Nebraskans dealt with 74 phone service outages last year, affecting thousands of people, and, in a few cases, limiting their access to 911.Those affected were unable to place or receive phone calls, and in some cases both cellular and landline services were affected.
At least four of the outages resulted in 911 services being limited or down for several hours at a time, according to outage reports from the Nebraska Public Service Commission. Whatever the cause, the Public Service Commission is not required to investigate the service providers that experience outages. “That’s a problem,” according to Public Service Commissioner Crystal Rhoades.
The Public Service Commission is an elected body that, among other things, regulates telephone companies. Rhoades has urged the commission to open an investigation into “preventable outages” caused by CenturyLink contractors. The company reported 41 of the 74 phone outages in 2019.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN - State Medicaid and Long Term Care Director Matthew Van Patton will leave his job effective Feb. 7, Department of Health and Human Services CEO Dannette Smith announced Monday. Van Patton has been the Nebraska director nearly two years. Smith said Van Patton is going back to the private sector. When he was hired for the Nebraska job, he was the head of a health care technology startup.
Gov. Pete Ricketts said his search for the next Medicaid director has started. When asked if it concerned her that Van Patton had chosen to leave in the middle of the expansion process, Smith said he had done an excellent job, but being the Medicaid director, both in Nebraska and nationally, is a tough job.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN — Memories of Nebraska’s last redistricting were still raw when state lawmakers started looking for ways to reduce the rancor and partisanship of the process.
Every proposal put forward in the years since then has failed. Most never cleared committee. One passed in 2016 only to be vetoed by Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts.
Now, on the eve of the 2021 redistricting, some senators and citizen groups are intensifying efforts to make changes.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN- According to the head of the powerful Revenue Committee, State Senator Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn, by talking about "levies" instead of "taxes" local governments try to 'trick" voters into thinking their property taxes have not gone up when everyone knows they have.
So try this on for size: If local governments raise your taxes Linehan says they’d have to send you a letter making sure you know they’ve raised your taxes. Last year by a vote of 47-to-nothing, state senators passed a bill forcing school boards and city councils to hold a separate public hearing and a separate vote if their budgets increased.
But Linehan is convinced some local governments poked the new law in the eye, so she plans to tighten it up.
View the article HERE
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving more aggressively to discharge as much water as possible from its Missouri River dams given the likelihood of continued high runoff.
The corps already has been discharging about twice the normal amount from the dams, and on Tuesday, the agency said it would again boost releases. Discharges from Gavins Point Dam will be set at 30,000 cubic feet per second this week, up 3,000 cfs. Normally during the winter, releases average between 12,000 and 17,000 cfs.
View the article HERE
LINCOLN — A political watchdog group filed a complaint against Nebraska State Treasurer John Murante on Tuesday, claiming that he failed to disclose a conflict of interest he had with a former employer he hired to produce nearly $600,000 worth of public service advertisements.
But Murante said he had ended his work for the company, Victory Enterprises, before being elected in 2018, and prior to when he hired the company in June to produce and place hundreds of television ads. Thus, there is no conflict, he said.
View the article HERE