NEBRASKA OFFICIALS DEMAND OMAHA-AREA CHILD WELFARE CONTRACTOR FIX KEY PROBLEMS

LINCOLN- Nebraska officials are demanding St. Francis Ministry, the contractor hired to oversee Omaha-area child welfare cases, fix key problems that should no longer be issues. 

A report released Monday shows that St. Francis Ministries of Salina, Kansas, fell short on several contracted performance goals during the last quarter of the year. Many were repeats from previous state reviews including that workers continue to have far too many cases, employee turnover remains high, background checks are not getting done, case plans are not being developed fast enough, placements are not being documented and workers are not meeting with the children in their care. 

In four of the six areas, St. Francis already was on a corrective action plan from the previous quarter, but had not corrected the problem. In a fifth area, workforce, the agency was required to develop a hiring plan in September, but made no progress in meeting state caseload limits between October and December.

DHHS is requiring the company to develop a plan for each one of those issues. Dannette Smith, the HHS CEO, said the state agreed to the new contract “to maintain continuity of services” in the Omaha area. But she also promised increased state oversight, saying that department officials will be “persnickety” in making sure that St. Francis fulfills its obligations under the new contract and maintains financial stability.

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TAXING CANDY AND SOFT DRINKS IN NEBRASKA COULD RAISE $33 MILLION; SEN. WAYNE AIMES TO REPEAL SALES TAX ON RESIDENTIAL WATER

LINCOLN — State Sen. John McCollister of Omaha said Wednesday his proposal to expand the state sales tax base to include candy and soft drinks would raise an estimated $33 million in state revenue in the 2021-22 fiscal year and suggested “we could talk about where the money should go.”

McCollister’s measure, Legislative Bill 115, is written to funnel that new revenue into the state’s health care cash fund, but he told the Legislature’s Revenue Committee that he is open to “repurposing some of that revenue.”

“Nebraska now has a narrow sales tax, a high income tax and, Lord knows, a high property tax,” McCollister said.

Opponents to the bill spoke about the cost retailers will have to take on to revise current measures and softwares. 

In another hearing, Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha introduced LB26 which would repeal the sales tax on the use and consumption of residential water. Wayne and supporters noted that water is not taxed when bought at the store but are taxed for it at home. Opponents testified that this would cost cities a loss of revenue.

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NEBRASKA LAWMAKERS CONSIDER BILL THAT WOULD STRENGTHEN PENALTIES FOR RIOTERS

LINCOLN- The Judiciary Committee heard testimony on Sen. Joni Albrecht's bill to create stiffer penalties for rioters who injure law enforcement or other public officers. She said she brought this bill because she was troubled by scenes of police being targeted by protesters. 

“If we expect our first responders to protect our person and property, we must give them the tools to keep themselves safe as well,” Albrecht told the committee. “We must provide law enforcement and county attorneys the tools to discourage and deter.”

The committee heard testimony by several supporters and a one opponent. The ACLU, appearing in opposition, said they believe this will infringe on citizens rights to protest and that there are already laws in place to protect law enforcement. Sen. Albrecht does not believe those laws are enough.

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TEACHER VACCINATIONS GAINING STEAM AS SARPY-CASS SETS START DATE OF MARCH 1

OMAHA- Sarpy-Cass Health Department officials notified school personnel that vaccinations will begin the week of March 1. This news came just days after Douglas County announced their teachers will begin receiving vaccinations next week. Other parts of the state are ahead of the metro including Grand Island which has vaccinated over 700 school employees.

Vaccinations will still be prioritized to teachers by age.

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WHY ISN'T BROADBAND MORE AVAILABLE IN RURAL NEBRASKA?

LINCOLN- Nebraska farmers are starting to become more and more worried about technological advances in agriculture taking their jobs or leaving them behind. This worry is not new, but with rural broadband being a hot topic this legislative session, more people are talking about it. Right now, around 80,000 rural residents lack internet that meets the federal definition of broadband. Nebraska ranks lower than all neighboring states except Wyoming in broadband availability. Nebraska also ranks 48th in terms of access, price and speed. 

Governor Ricketts is proposing spending $40 million in the next two years to help this problem and would be the first time taxpayer funds would be devoted to the effort. Many blame this issue on having to cover a lot of land with very few customers. Measures to ensure more accountability have been taken but it is still not enough. 

Chair of the legislative committee working on increasing broadband coverage, Sen. Curt Friesen of Henderson says it is an expensive and complicated process that will take time.

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RESTAURANTS AND STARTUPS TRY TO OUTRUN UBER EATS AND DOORDASH

NEW YORK-  Food delivery apps such as DoorDash and Uber Eats have provided business for restaurants throughout the pandemic. Now, restaurants are looking to find ways around these apps and the commissions they charge. These delivery apps charge restaurants upwards of 30% on every order. Some states have started enforcing caps on delivery-app fees in an effort to help small restaurants. 

The newest app, Spread, only charges restaurants $1 for every order with the goal of being a cheaper more small-restaurant friendly alternative. Sales on third-party food-deliver services have doubled since the pandemic began last March. DoorDash has also started a service for smaller restaurants that allows customers to buy directly from the restaurant. The app does not take a commission for this service but instead charges a flat see to deliver those orders. Uber Eats followed and Grubhub have both begun to look into similar programs within their apps, but have not launched services as of yet. 

Chain restaurants are also looking into avoiding the third-party through different pickup options and delivering to customers themselves.

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TESLA TEMPORARILY HALTED U.S. PRODUCTION OVER PARTS SHORTAGE

PALO ALTO- Tesla recently halted production at its car plant in Fremont, CA due to shortages in a variety of parts for their cars. While the production lines have since resumed, other manufacturers such as Ford Motor Co., Volkswagen, and others have also idled some production throughout the ongoing pandemic. The White House, in an effort to continue economic security during the pandemic is attempting to fix the supply chain shortfalls. 

“We are working extremely hard to manage through the global semiconductor shortage as well as port capacity, which may have a temporary impact," said Tesla's Chief Financial Officer. 

These shortages as well as recent videos of battery fires going viral have become a major headache for Tesla as China has cast a wary gaze on the automaker.

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THE TEXAS FREEZE: WHY THE POWER GRID FAILED

DALLAS-  A fundamental flaw in the freewheeling Texas electricity market left millions powerless and freezing in the dark this week during a historic cold snap. The core problem: Power providers can reap rewards by supplying electricity to Texas customers, but they aren’t required to do it and face no penalties for failing to deliver during a lengthy emergency. That led to the fiasco that left millions of people in the nation’s second-most-populous state without power for days. A severe storm paralyzed almost every energy source, from power plants to wind turbines, because their owners hadn’t made the investments needed to produce electricity in subfreezing temperatures.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, facing a political uproar as the state of 29 million people virtually ground to a halt, tacitly acknowledged in a statewide address Thursday that these market incentives weren’t sufficient. He called upon legislators to mandate that power generators prepare for extreme winter storms. The state, he said, should also supply the funding to make it happen.

The system broke down this week when 185 generating units, including gas and coal-fired power plants, tripped offline during the brunt of the storm. Wind turbines in West Texas froze as well, and a nuclear unit near the Gulf of Mexico went down for more than 48 hours. Another problem emerged: Some power plants lost their pipeline supply of gas and couldn’t generate electricity even if they wanted to capture the high prices. Such mechanical problems might have been avoided if operators had chosen to equip their plants like those that operate in traditional cold-weather states.

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EMAILS SHOW OMAHA POLICE MONITORING OF ACTIVISTS IN 2020

OMAHA- The Omaha Police Department monitored activists' posts on social media last year and subsequently planted undercover officers at the protests. The tracking even went so far as to find birthday party plans for a Black protest organizer. This information was found after hundreds of emails were revealed by the ACLU. 

The ACLU called these actions biased and unnecessary surveillance of police critics that echoes the “disturbing historical pattern of police monitoring lawful activities of Black civil rights leaders.”

The Omaha Police Department’s public information office released a statement saying that police used “open source intelligence” such as Facebook announcements “to learn of events that may bring a large number of persons together over the summer during a specific period of civil unrest in our city.” 

Community organizer Ja Keen Fox said the emails revealed police behavior that was “a failure in the building of community trust and just fiscally irresponsible.”

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OMAHA-BASED BUILDERTREND ACQUIRES COCONSTRUCT; CREATES LEADER IN CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Buildertrend, an Omaha-based provider of cloud-based construction management software for homebuilders, remodelers and specialty contractors, announced Wednesday the acquisition of CoConstruct, a complementary provider of construction project management software for the residential construction industry.

CoConstruct was founded in 2004 in Charlottesville, Virginia, with a mission to bring residential construction project management into the 21st century. The company has been recognized as Constructech’s No. 1 software platform for construction collaboration for more than 10 years in a row. The transaction makes Buildertrend the largest construction management software dedicated to empowering independent and custom homebuilders, contractors and remodelers with the tools to better coordinate projects, control finances and communicate with clients and crews, according to a release.

Buildertrend co-founder and co-CEO Dan Houghton will lead the combined company, and CoConstruct founder Donny Wyatt will serve as an advisor to lead integration efforts. The combined business served 23,000 clients, more than 1.1 million users and facilitated more than $200 billion in annual residential construction project value in 2020.

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NEBRASKA'S PLAN FOR TWO-TIER MEDICAID EXPANSION PROGRAM SUFFERS SECOND BLOW

LINCOLN — Nebraska’s top Medicaid official announced Thursday that a second major part of the two-tier Medicaid expansion program has been put on hold. The decision means that low-income, working-age adults — the bulk of those covered under the expansion — will have no way to receive dental, vision and over-the-counter medication benefits for the foreseeable future.

Those benefits are automatically part of traditional Medicaid. But state officials had planned to require that expansion patients meet six wellness and personal responsibility goals to qualify for the benefits. The qualification period was to start April 1.

Now, State Medicaid Director Kevin Bagley said federal officials have indicated that they have concerns about the plan and are unlikely to approve it in time for an April launch. That leaves the future of the two-tier plan, called Heritage Health Adult, up in the air.

Earlier this month, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services alerted Nebraska officials that the Biden administration was looking to withdraw approval for another key part of the two-tier plan.

That part, which was to start in 2022, would have required most expansion patients to work, volunteer or do other specified activities for 80 hours a month to get full benefits. The “community engagement” requirements were to be in addition to the wellness and personal responsibility requirements.

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GUN RIGHTS ADVOCATES BACK BILL THAT WOULD BAN NEBRASKA FROM ENFORCING ANY NEW FEDERAL GUN LAWS

LINCOLN- Gun rights advocates expressed fears of 'losing their constitutional rights' with President Biden pushing for increased gun safety laws. 

“We’re at a dangerous point of losing our constitutional rights,” said Anthony Arnold of Ashland.

Sen. Steve Halloran, the introducer of the measure, describes his bill as a "Second Amendment Preservation Act" although he is not aware of any federal moves to seize guns from Nebraskans. Similar laws have been passed by a handful of states and are currently being discussed in Texas and Missouri. Opponents of the bill says Nebraska is not above the law and should follow any federal regulations that are handed down.

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FORMER NEBRASKA CONGRESSIONAL, LEGISLATIVE, SENATE, AND GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE FILES TO ESTABLISH THE MAGA PATRIOTS PARTY

LINCOLN- Mark Elworth Jr., a former candidate for many offices, filed to establish a new political party in Nebraska for the second time. On Monday, Elworth announced the MAGA Patriots Party — a name for a new party proposed by former President Donald Trump — on his personal Facebook page and said he has chosen North Platte to be the party headquarters. 

“People in the 3rd District have been disenfranchised from state politics, and we are going to change that,” Elworth said in the Facebook post. “... The Nebraska Republicans have failed us. They no longer work or compete for your votes. They have ulterior motives without your best interests in mind.”

Elworth also said the state Elections Division rejected the first filing for the MAGA Patriots Party, a claim Secretary of State Bob Evnen disputed. “If Mr. Elworth Jr. claims that our office made up new rules for him, he is mistaken and that is inaccurate,” Evnen said. “We apply the laws that the Legislature has passed, and that is what we did with respect to Mr. Elworth’s Jr. petition.”

Elworth is working on getting the Legal Marijuana Now Party recognized as well.

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NEBRASKA'S PROCUREMENT PROCESS MISSED UNDERBID BY ST. FRANCIS MINISTRIES

LINCOLN- Most Nebraskans saw a disaster in the making when the state signed a contract for 40% less than what they were paying in the past. The state's procurement process did not question any of the reasonableness of the five-year $197 million proposal. Now, The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services signed an emergency contract to keep St. Francis Ministry from running out of money. The new contract wiped out the 40% cost different and boosted payments the state would be making. 

LR29, introcuded by Senator Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha, seeks to create a special legislative committee to investigate how the state signed that contract and all events that transpired from that.

DHHS CEO Dannette Smith defends the decision to sign with St. Francis citing the now-terminated St. Francis officials for the situation. The state does not submit cost proposals to the evaluation teams everyone else does, they merely check the math and rate the proposal accordingly. At the time, many people believed PromiseShip was being overpaid, which has now been disproved. 

St. Francis has yet to meet the caseload requirements laid out in state law.

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STATE SENATORS AT ODDS OVER NEED FOR COVID LIABILITY PROTECTION BILLS

LINCOLN- The sponsor of one bill to protect Nebraska businesses, health care providers and other entities from most coronavirus-related lawsuits called the measure a substantial step toward recovery from the pandemic. 

State Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he introduced LB52, the immunity proposal, to spark discussion and find out whether legal protections are needed. He concluded a public hearing on the bill by saying he had not heard evidence of a problem. "There's a fear of a threat of a possibility" of lawsuits, he said, but no one at the hearing could point to actual COVID-related cases in Nebraska.

On the other hand, Sen. Tom Briese of Albion argued that his measure (LB139) is needed to give business owners and other entities the confidence to reopen. Even if lawsuits have not been filed yet, he said, he expects to see them in coming months. He also said the perception of legal risk is a concern.

Mark Schorr, testifying for the Nebraska, Omaha and Lincoln Chambers of Commerce, as well as several other groups, said the measure represents a balancing act. It provides protection but doesn't completely block lawsuits, he said.  As evidence of the need, he pointed to similar legislation passed by 20 other states and to a wave of notices from liability insurance companies that either exclude coverage for COVID-related risks or raise premiums for that coverage. He also said there have been attorneys advertising around the country seeking to represent people harmed by COVID-19.

Opponents to LB139 included trial attorneys, labor unions and AARP Nebraska, which represents older Nebraskans.

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BILL WOULD ALLOW NEBRASKA VOTERS TO USE RANKED-CHOICE VOTING FOR SOME ELECTED OFFICES

LINCOLN- Under a proposal by Senator John McCollister, voters in the Cornhusker State to rank their preferences in elections for the Legislature, governor, Congress and the Senate. The bill (LB125) would put ranked-choice voting in place in Nebraska for elections to those offices where three or more candidates are running.

McCollister told the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee he believed ranked-choice voting would increase voter satisfaction, provide for efficiencies by eliminating the need to hold separate runoff elections and ensure fairness in elections. The system allows voters to rank candidates by preference — they would indicate their top preference in the first column, second preference in the next column, and so on — with any candidate gaining more than 50% of the votes being declared the winner.

If no candidate gains a majority after the first-preference votes are counted, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated, elevating the second-preference votes on those ballots. The process would be repeated until a candidate wins a simple majority of the votes cast.

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COUNTY OFFICIALS TESTIFY AGAINST PROPOSAL TO REDUCE NEBRASKA'S INHERITANCE TAX; NOTE PROPERTY TAX INCREASES WOULD BE NEEDED TO OFFSET LOSS OF REVENUE

LINCOLN- County officials came to oppose any change in the inheritance tax during the hearing of the Revenue Committee on Thursday. They said that counties use the funds generated to reduce property taxes, finance special projects or respond to emergencies likes floods. If it was drastically reduced, as presented in LB310 by Senator Clements they said, counties' only option would be to increase property taxes, which is the top target for complaints, not the inheritance tax.

"I've found county board members to be as conservative as anybody, and they don't want to raise taxes," said Larry Dix, the former executive director of the Nebraska Association of County Officials. Some county officials also said that with proper estate planning, the inheritance tax can be avoided entirely.

While the inheritance tax paid varies widely each year, it has averaged about $65 million statewide in recent years, including about $12.7 million a year in Douglas County and about $5 million a year in Lancaster County.

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RICKETTS SAYS NEBRASKA ON COURSE FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COVID VACCINATIONS IN SPRING

LINCOLN- But Nebraska remains on course to move into inoculation of the general public in April or May, Gov. Pete Ricketts said Thursday during a coronavirus news briefing. Not only are current vaccine allocations to the state being increased, new data shows that six doses rather than five can be administered from each vial of Pfizer vaccine, production of both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is being increased, and a vaccine from Johnson & Johnson may soon be approved and added to the supply.

"Good news," the governor said.

Nebraska is expecting 18,720 doses of Pfizer and 18,400 doses of Moderna next week, Angie Ling, incident commander at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, said. People 65 and older will continue to remain the focus for now, Ricketts said, pointing once again to statistics demonstrating that the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths in Nebraska occur in the older population. To that end, Ricketts said that once vaccinations in the current priority group are completed, the state will move to vaccinate Nebraskans age 50 and over. 

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LAWMAKERS TO SCHEDULE HEARINGS WITH PUBLIC POWER, NATURAL GAS COMPANIES FOLLOWING BLACKOUTS

LINCOLN- A pair of state lawmakers said Wednesday they plan to call on Nebraska’s largest public power districts and natural gas entities to testify before legislative committees following this week’s rolling blackouts. Thousands of Nebraskans briefly lost power this week during scheduled times as the Southwest Power Pool had difficulty meeting demand amid record-breaking low temperatures.

Sen. Bruce Bostelman of Brainard, chair of the Natural Resources Committee, said the fact-finding hearing with the Nebraska Public Power District, the Omaha Public Power District and the Lincoln Electric System will help the Legislature better understand why they happened. Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne, who leads the Urban Affairs Committee, also plans to hold a hearing with Black Hills Energy and the Metropolitan Utilities District, the two largest natural gas distributors in the state. 

“We’re in a weird dynamic where we have public and private (energy companies),” Wayne said. “So I want to know who operated more efficiently in serving their customers.”

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SKEPTICAL SENATORS QUESTION NEBRASKA CORRECTIONS CHIEF ON PROPOSED $230 MILLION PRISON

LINCOLN — Nebraska’s Corrections Department director faced a string of tough questions, and a line of opponents, during a Thursday hearing on the proposal to build a $230 million prison.

While Director Scott Frakes said chronic overcrowding and aging facilities require the “tough” decision to build a 1,600-bed maximum-medium-security facility, legislators, as well as advocates for sentencing reforms, questioned the need for such a costly construction project when crime rates are falling.

State Sen. John Stinner of Gering, who chairs the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, which weighs budget requests, grabbed his throat and said flatly that he had “a gag problem” with such a request. “That’s a lot of money,” he said. “And it’s a lot of ongoing money.” The prison might be the most expensive complex ever to be funded by state tax dollars, and would require about $34 million in annual operating expenses.

“I may be convinced by the right information, but I’m not there yet,” said Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln. Frakes responded “We can’t afford to wait and see if other options come forward.”

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