Government spending, school funding and winner-take-all top governor’s priority list
Gov. Jim Pillen revealed his budgetary and legislative priorities in his State of the State address to lawmakers Jan. 15. Top priorities for the governor include limiting government spending, improving the state’s school funding system and reinstating a winner-take-all system for allocating Nebraska’s Electoral College votes.
Pillen touted several proposals intended to shrink the size of government and lower government spending by .5% percent over the next biennium, including “common sense” adjustments to the state tax code, eliminating duplicative boards and commissions and focusing on the state’s needs rather than wants.
“To shrink government, we must eliminate its obsolete parts,” Pillen said. “We must continually assess which parts of government are still of use to the people.”
The governor also proposed the consolidation of two major state agencies — the Department of Environment and Energy and the Department of Natural Resources — which he said needlessly divide the state’s focus on water quality and quantity.
Under his proposal, a newly established Department of Water, Energy and Environment would be solely responsible for overseeing the state’s system of surface waterways and the Ogallala Aquifer.
“Water is the lifeblood of Nebraska,” Pillen said, “and what we do to protect our quantity and to improve our quality of water … will be our legacy.”
Pillen also discussed the importance of reevaluating the state’s school funding system. In the last 25 years, he said, the number of school districts receiving state aid has decreased from 226 to just 60. That was not the intent of the original law, he said.
To correct the situation, Pillen said he will establish a “blue ribbon” commission of experts to “cut through the bureaucracy” and recommend a new school funding model for Nebraska.
“We are going to have to have the courage to make serious and lasting fixes to the system,” he said.
The governor also prioritized eliminating the current practice of allocating three of Nebraska’s Electoral College votes by congressional district, proposing instead to adopt a winner-take-all system. For three decades, Pillen said, Nebraskans have divided their voices and diminished the state’s impact on presidential elections.
“With no presidential election around the corner, there’s no better time than now to dispassionately deliver on the will of the majority of this state,” he said, “to honor our constitutional founding and unify our voice in our most important exercise of democracy.”
