NEBRASKA HOSPITAL LEADERS OUTLINE ISSUES FOR FUTURE OF RURAL HEALTHCARE

LINCOLN- The Nebraska Hospital Association (NHA) and the Nebraska Rural Health Association (NeRHA) unveiled the 2025-26 Roadmap to Strong Rural Health Care to help improve rural healthcare in the state on Tuesday. NHA President Jeremy Nordquist says Nebraska hospitals currently struggle with lagging reimbursement rates, higher labor costs, and aggressive practices from large insurance companies and big pharma.

According to a recent survey of NHA’s membership, many of Nebraska’s rural hospitals operated at a loss in the last quarter. The average operating margin for 2024 was 1.4%, well below a sustainable margin. “These tough financial conditions have forced over 20% of our hospitals to reduce or eliminate services in the last the years,” Nordquist said.

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STATE CHAMBER PRESIDENT BRYAN SLONE ANNOUNCES PLANS STEP DOWN

LINCOLN- Bryan Slone publicly announced today he intends to step down as President/CEO of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry following the 109th Legislative Session in June of 2025. A search committee has begun a search process to identify his successor and has started accepting applications.

During his tenure, the NE Chamber has continued to serve as the “Voice of Business” in legislative and regulatory matters and policy-making processes. Slone noted that his time at the NE Chamber has been a “great personal privilege due to the incredible support of the membership, the very talented staff members on the chamber team, and the many unique opportunities for the organization to make a difference for Nebraska’s businesses and economic competitiveness.”

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RECLASSIFICATION OF SMALL NEBRASKA SCHOOL DISTRICTS OPENS DOOR TO ARMING SELECT STAFF

LINCOLN — A new state law could lead to greater efficiency in setting rules, regulations and safety standards for some of Nebraska’s smallest school districts. Nebraska Education Commissioner Brian Maher reclassified or shifted roughly 80% of the state’s 245 school districts to new, smaller levels at the beginning of the year.

State Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil, the sponsor of Legislative Bill 1329 from 2024, said his legislation could lead to more efficiency in creating laws or regulations that include the districts with fewer than 5,000 total residents. “I’m just trying to make a more efficient way of addressing the needs of different sized districts and different demographics,” Murman told the Nebraska Examiner.

One of the immediate effects of the law gives school boards of smaller districts the option to authorize select school security personnel to carry firearms on school grounds.

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NEBRASKA NOW HAS 18TH-HIGHEST MINIMUM WAGE; ADVOCATES WANT TO ENSURE IT KEEPS RISING

OMAHA - The new year brings a new minimum wage to Nebraska, and supporters of the higher wage don’t want lawmakers tampering with the law that boosted it. The state now has the 18th-highest minimum wage after the increase effective Jan. 1. That’s according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks minimum wages in the 50 states.

The new minimum wage of $13.50 an hour is the result of a successful 2022 ballot initiative that authorized a series of annual increases. Initiative 433 was an effort of Raise the Wage Nebraska, supported financially by labor unions and various progressive organizations. The measure passed with more than 58% of voters in favor.

The minimum wage will remain at $13.50 an hour through December 31, 2025. In 2026, it will rise to $15. In successive years, the wage will increase based on the cost of living. Sue Martin, president and secretary-treasurer of the Nebraska State AFL-CIO, commented on the boost. “These consistent, predictable increases toward $15 since 2023, along with the annual cost of living increases that will begin in 2027, will ensure that hardworking Nebraska workers don’t fall behind,” she said.

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GOV. JIM PILLEN TALKS ABOUT HIS INJURIES, RECOVERY AND GETTING BACK TO WORK

LINCOLN — Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a former University of Nebraska defensive back, knew about getting hit hard long before he played for Hall of Fame football coach Tom Osborne. He got bruising lessons at home, on family land near Columbus, where big brother, Clete, an all-Big 8 linebacker, pummeled him long before the Pillen boys played against Big 8 offenses.

But the governor said the pain of backyard tussles was “nothing” compared to what he felt after a few slow-motion seconds on Dec. 22, when his son-in-law’s horse and his got spooked. “I’ve never experienced anything close,” said Pillen, who broke seven ribs, two of them twice, along with a collapsed lung, a lacerated spleen, a bruised kidney and a fractured vertebra.

Pillen discussed his injuries during that horse ride, his recovery at hospitals in Columbus and Omaha and getting back to work in a sit-down interview with the Nebraska Examiner on Friday. He laughed and teared up in a high-backed chair in the living room of the Governor’s Mansion, where he has stayed since being released from the Nebraska Medical Center a week earlier.

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NEBRASKA LAWMAKER WHO CHAMPIONED GOOD LIFE DISTRICTS LAW CRITICIZES ROLLOUT

GRETNA- When State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan proposed legislation to create good life districts two years ago, she envisioned the result would be a Nebraska tourist magnet akin to Kansas City’s Legends retail complex or Minnesota’s Mall of America. Inspiring her, she said, was businessman Rod Yates’ dream to build a sports-retail-entertainment mecca around the existing Nebraska Crossing shopping center he owns in Gretna, between the state’s two largest cities, Omaha and Lincoln.

However, two key drivers of the Good Life Act say they are disappointed in how the law and subsequent updates are playing out. Yates’ plan appears deadlocked with the Gretna City Council, and Linehan now fears that she let language slip by that could allow Gretna and a handful of Nebraska cities to use the state incentive in ways she didn’t intend — boosting projects that are less spectacular than one-of-a-kind.

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BILL INTRODUCED TO PLUG ‘MISSING YEAR’ OF NEBRASKA PROPERTY TAX RELIEF

LINCOLN — Lawmakers have formally introduced a “fix” to Nebraska’s summer special session changes to a key property tax relief program, which closed off some tax relief for Nebraskans.

State Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering introduced Legislative Bill 81 on Thursday, a promise he and five other lawmakers made in October. The legislation would allow all Nebraskans to claim a credit on any property taxes paid in 2024 when they file their tax returns this spring, in the middle of the 90-day legislative session. The aim is to make whole the people who missed out on claiming an income tax credit for property taxes assessed in December 2023.

LB 81 would offer a one-time extension for the income tax credit program established in 2020 and designed to offset K-12 school taxes, which comprise most local property taxes.

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FIRST DAY OF 2025 NEBRASKA LEGISLATURE UNDERSCORES CONSERVATIVE STRONGHOLD

LINCOLN — The conservative stronghold on the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature became clearer Wednesday, as state lawmakers chose Republicans for the top leadership spots on all but one of 17 key legislative committees. The lone Democrat elected to a chair position was State Sen. Terrell McKinney — and he ran unopposed in his bid to preside over the Urban Affairs Committee for two more years.

In the couple of races when a Republican competed against another Republican for a committee chair, the lawmaker with the more conservative voting record won. (Republicans this year again hold 33 of 49 seats in the Legislature, the exact size of supermajority needed to break filibusters and advance often contentious legislation. Democrats number at 15, and one state lawmaker is a progressive nonpartisan.)

In yet another contested race, the longest current tenured senator, Democrat Danielle Conrad of Lincoln, lost to the youngest member of the Legislature, Republican Beau Ballard, to preside over the Nebraska Retirement Systems.

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PARTISAN FIGHT CONTINUES OVER COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS IN NEBRASKA LEGISLATURE

LINCOLN — The fate of some conservative priorities, such as changing how Nebraska allocates its votes for president or adding a “women’s bill of rights” to state law, could depend on whether Republicans succeed this week in making Democrats a minority on every legislative committee but one.

The leading point of contention Wednesday revolved around the makeup of the eight-member Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. By the end of the first day of the session, Government was set to have five Democrats and three Republicans, including its chair.

“Me personally, and I’m one vote, I’m not representing any caucus in this,” State Sen. Christy Armendariz of Omaha, the Committee on Committees chair, said. “I think that the committee assignments should be representative of the makeup of the entire state.” While the Legislature is officially nonpartisan, Armendariz, a first-time member of the committee, said all 13 members know what is going on: a fight over partisan balance, which impacts all Nebraskans.

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A HOST OF CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES TO FACE 2025 NEBRASKA LEGISLATORS

LINCOLN- The 109th Legislature will officially convene on Jan. 8, and several returning senators confirmed that they plan to introduce bills following up on past issues like winner-take-all, property tax relief, and legislative oversight over government watchdogs like the Ombudsman’s Office.

Lawmakers have differing levels of optimism about whether there is even room for new tax relief given the deficit. Plans on other subjects, like gun access, abortion policy, and K-12 curriculum, are even murkier.

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SPEAKER ARCH: NEBRASKA BUDGET 'WITHOUT A DOUBT' BIGGEST ISSUE OF 2025 SESSION

LINCOLN — Speaker John Arch of La Vista this week outlined the Nebraska Legislature’s biggest 2025 issue as lawmakers return to Lincoln: the state budget. Arch, who is so far running unopposed to helm Nebraska’s legislative branch for two more years, said the budget would “without a doubt” be state lawmakers’ biggest issue in 2025 when they return for a 90-day session beginning Wednesday at 10 a.m.

That priority comes as the state budget is forecasted to be running more than $432 million short in the next two fiscal years, which begin July 1 and end June 30, 2027. Legislative solutions will likely need to be massaged by the Legislature’s Appropriations and Revenue Committees.If left unchecked, estimates show that the budget hole could grow to $1.13 billion by the middle of 2029, partly because of 2023 legislative decisions to decrease tax rates for top income and corporate earners.

Now, Arch said, lawmakers will see the reality and real numbers of those changes. “We’ll have to have some time to digest,” Arch told the Nebraska Examiner on Monday. “We took some pretty big swings in the last couple of sessions.”

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FORMER OMAHA LOBBYIST JACK CHELOHA NAMED RALSTON CITY ADMINISTRATOR

RALSTON- The City of Ralston has appointed Jack Cheloha, formerly a longtime City of Omaha lobbyist, as its new city administrator.

Cheloha, a senior attorney for Goosmann Law Firm, begins his Ralston duties on Jan. 2.

He replaced Rick Hoppe, who had served as city administrator for the city of about 6,500 people since 2020. Hoppe was recently named chief of staff to Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird. “Jack is the right choice to keep Ralston moving forward,” said Ralston Mayor Don Groesser.

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BIDEN TO AWARD LINCOLN POLICE OFFICER TU ANH TRAN THE MEDAL OF VALOR

LINCOLN- President Joe Biden is awarding a Medal of Valor on Friday to the Lincoln Police Department sergeant who jumped into a frigid pond in February 2023 to save a woman from drowning in her car. Sergeant Tu Anh Tran responded to a winter weather-related wreck at Wilderness Ridge Golf Course in which a 27-year-old woman lost control of her Hyundai Elantra on Yankee Hill Road in south Lincoln and slipped into a pond that typically does little more than complicate life for golfers.

Tran has deflected attempts to describe his efforts as heroic, sharing credit with the bystanders and the people who called 911. But it was the second time he had jumped into the water to help rescue someone, having done the same in September 2022. On Friday in Washington, D.C., Tran will be honored along with officers from Nashville, Tennessee, who stopped a school shooter, a New York fire lieutenant who saved a mother and child, and a firefighter who saved two unconscious people.

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'CHRISTMAS MIRACLE' SAVES SMALL-TOWN NEBRASKA NEWSPAPERS

LINCOLN- Rod Worrell calls it a “Christmas miracle,” but just hours before he was ready to print the final edition of the Ainsworth Star-Journal on Dec. 25, a new owner emerged. Now both the Star-Journal and the Valentine Midland News, two weekly papers that Worrell and his wife Kathy had owned for more than 40 years, will not close. Potential owners in Ainsworth, he said, were having trouble finding someone to staff the paper — the workforce is a major issue in many sectors across Nebraska, including in Ainsworth, a ranching community 140 miles west of Norfolk.

Graig Kinzie, the owner of the local radio station in Ainsworth, said he’d been trying to put together a group to buy the paper for two to three months, but each group couldn’t come up with someone to run the operation. Then the owners of an Ainsworth car dealership, Clint and Katie Painter stepped forward to tell Kinzie their daughter, Erin, wanted to move back to her hometown and was willing to manage the paper.

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USDA AWARDS NEBRASKA GROUP $200M TO BOOST CLEAN ENERGY EFFORTS

LINCOLN- A Nebraska rural electric cooperative has been awarded a $200 million federal grant to boost clean and affordable energy efforts in the state. The funding to Nebraska Electric Generation & Transmission Cooperative was part of the latest round of investments by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Empowering Rural America Program, or New ERA, which aims to help rural Americans transition to cleaner, less expensive, and reliable energy.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced in December that $4.37 billion in grants and loans were headed to 10 rural electric cooperatives, representing seven states, for projects that support jobs, lower electricity costs for businesses and families, and reduce climate pollution. In Nebraska, USDA officials say the $200 million award will be used by NEG&T to procure 725 megawatts of wind and solar energy in Butler, Burt, and Custer Counties.

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INSURANCE MUST NOW COVER ALL PARTS OF NEBRASKANS' COLORECTAL CANCER SCREENINGS

LINCOLN- Legislative Bill 829 from State Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue took effect Jan. 1. It requires insurance companies to cover each “integral part” of performing a colorectal cancer screening. Its adoption followed the passage of LB 92 in 2023, which included a provision from State Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln that required insurance plans to cover screening colonoscopies, as well as an annual stool-based preventative screening test designed for patients with minimal to average risk of colorectal cancer.

Nebraska is ranked in the lower half of states for colorectal cancer screening rates, according to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Blood stated she came up with the idea for her LB 829 when she was getting a colonoscopy and was handed a release before her procedure saying most insurance companies wouldn’t cover part of a colonoscopy should they find something, like a polyp, which can grow into cancer over time.

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SIXTH 2024 NEBRASKA BIRD FLU CASE FOUND, THIS ONE IN JOHNSON COUNTY

LINCOLN- In late December, state and federal agricultural officials identified a sixth Nebraska case from 2024 of highly pathogenic avian influenza. This one was found in a commercial flock of broiler chickens in Johnson County, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture announced on New Year’s Eve. It was December’s fifth confirmed case. Johnson County is in southeast Nebraska.

State Veterinarian Dr. Roger Dudley has said he expects to find more instances of the “highly contagious virus” because it has circulated in wild birds and commercial and backyard flocks. Before this one, cases were identified in backyard flocks in Sarpy and Lancaster Counties, a commercial flock in Nemaha County, and one in a backyard flock in Dodge County.

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SMALL-BUSINESS LENDING REBOUNDS IN NEBRASKA IN 2024

LINCOLN - Lending to small businesses in Nebraska rebounded sharply in fiscal year 2024.According to the annual report from the U.S. Small Business Administration, the number of SBA-guaranteed loans was up more than 39% from 2023, while the total dollar amount of the loans grew by nearly 20%.

Overall, the state's small businesses received $195.7 million in SBA-guaranteed financing, which was the third-highest amount ever recorded, trailing only 2021 and 2022. The 7(a) program, which guarantees traditional small-business loans, guaranteed 368 loans totaling $139.1 million in fiscal 2024, up from 295 loans worth $105.2 million in fiscal 2023.

Nebraska saw big increases in both its 7(a) lending program and the 504 loan program. The 504 program, which guarantees loans that allow businesses to buy large equipment or build, buy or expand buildings, and are facilitated through nonprofit lenders called certified development companies, saw fewer loans approved in 2024 — 23, compared with 31 in 2023 — but the value of those loans was $56.6 million, compared with just $35.2 million in 2023.

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'WE'VE NEVER HAS THIS KIND OF MONEY BEFORE': NEBRASKA'S WINNEBAGO TRIBE PLANNING FOR CASINO WINDFALL

OMAHA- Profits from casinos opening in Omaha and Lincoln will give the Winnebago tribe a new opportunity to improve the lives of its people. Tribal members say the delightful challenge ahead is how to best spend the money expected to pour in once its casinos are up and running.

“We’ve never had this kind of money before,” said Lance Morgan, chief executive officer of Ho-Chunk Inc., the tribe’s economic development arm. Two newly built, tribal-owned WarHorse casinos will tap gamblers’ pockets in Nebraska’s two largest metro areas starting this year. The tribe plans to open the new WarHorse Casino in Omaha on Aug. 6, and a few months later its sister casino in Lincoln. A third WarHorse casino is planned in South Sioux City.

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ABORTION LED NEBRASKA'S TOP FIVE POLITICAL STORIES FROM 2024

LINCOLN- Nebraska’s political year in 2024, as in much of the nation, was dominated by abortion politics. The issue influenced ballot initiatives and competitive races. Voters in Nebraska, Florida, and South Dakota became the first since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 to reject ballot initiatives seeking to expand abortion rights.

The Nebraska vote was unique because abortion restrictionists passed a competing proposal on the same ballot, promoting it as a “moderate alternative” to the abortion rights amendment. They said the status quo helps women and children. Abortion rights advocates spent much of the campaign fighting what they called “misinformation and disinformation” that miscast their effort to codify abortion rights as “extreme.” They said the way things are harms women and families.

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