Lawmakers voted May 28 to override a little more than half of the governor\u2019s line-item vetoes of the state budget package.<\/p>\n
The eight bills comprising the $7.8 billion budget were passed last week and sent to Gov. Dave Heineman. The governor vetoed approximately $40 million in general, federal and cash funds over the next two years from LB195, the mainline budget bill.<\/p>\n
In his veto letter, Heineman said LB195 reflected many shared priorities between the governor\u2019s office and the Legislature, but that fiscal discipline should be maintained.<\/p>\n
The Appropriations Committee offered a motion to override vetoes in 10 sections of the bill. Omaha Sen. Heath Mello, chairperson of the committee, said the items represented slightly more than half of the items vetoes by the governor and approximately 33 percent of the funding vetoed from the entire budget.<\/p>\n
Provisions in LB195 to be overridden by the committee\u2019s motion included:
\n\u2022 $4 million from the Securities Act cash fund for appropriations for the Homeless Shelter Assistance, the Affordable Housing Trust and Legal Aid and Services;
\n\u2022 $4 million to the state Department of Roads for assistance to local transit authorities for mass transit aid;
\n\u2022 $775,000 for the state\u2019s Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program and salary increases for County Court employees;
\n\u2022 $600,000 to the state\u2019s Federally Qualified Health Centers;
\n\u2022 $450,000 to the Omaha Learning Community;
\n\u2022 $300,000 to fund a Dental Health Director; and
\n\u2022 $140,000 to the Postsecondary Education Commission for a data analyst position.<\/p>\n
Lincoln Sen. Amanda McGill supported reinstating funds to the CASA program, which provides volunteers to help youth navigate the state\u2019s child welfare system. She said the funds would allow the program to expand into more Nebraska counties, saving the state money in the long-term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are still 1,600 kids who don\u2019t have a CASA volunteer,\u201d McGill said<\/p>\n
Sen. Kate Sullivan of Cedar Rapids spoke in support of raises for the state\u2019s county court employees, saying their workload and responsibilities continually have increased without a corresponding increase in compensation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk often in this body about the importance of our citizens having access to the judicial system,\u201d Sullivan said, adding that county court employees are the system\u2019s frontline in terms of access.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have continued to lag way behind in terms of compensation and salaries,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha supported reinstating funding for a state dental director, saying Nebraska has missed out on federal grant funding because of the vacant position.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would create the opportunity to attract that money from the federal government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers spoke in support of the override motion in its entirety, saying the Appropriation Committee had done a good job of putting together a sensible budget that senators voted to approve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe budget bills represented the work product of the Legislature collectively and as an institution,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had a chance to chew over everything in those bills \u2026 I had a chance to chew it once; I\u2019m not going to chew it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The motion was adopted on a vote of 32-5.<\/p>\n
Additional override motions<\/strong><\/p>\n Chambers offered a motion to override the veto of $353,338 to the Auditor of Public Accounts for baseline funding and salary increases. He said the auditor does excellent work scrutinizing state agencies and deserves sufficient resources to carry out the office\u2019s constitutional duties.<\/p>\n \u201cI am endorsing this override based strictly on the work that office has done,\u201d Chambers said.<\/p>\n Columbus Sen. Paul Schumacher supported the motion, saying term limits increase the need for quality oversight. A good public auditor can bring areas of concern to the Legislature\u2019s attention, he said, especially when new senators may not know where to look.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of those guiding lights that we\u2019re going to have to rely on as a Legislature as time goes on,\u201d Schumacher said.<\/p>\n The motion failed on a 24-16 vote. Thirty votes are required to override a veto.<\/p>\n Fullerton Sen. Annette Dubas offered two override motions to other line-item vetoes in LB195. The first would have overridden the governor\u2019s veto of $185,681 to the Public Service Commission to fund a railroad inspector position.<\/p>\n Dubas said Nebraska is number two in the nation in the amount of hazardous materials transported by rail through the state. Currently, she said, inspectors are able to inspect less than 1 percent of railroad lines per year.<\/p>\n \u201cStates are an essential component of the national railroad safety program,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Hyannis Sen. Al Davis supported the motion, saying Nebraska has fewer inspectors than other states in spite of the high level of rail traffic. He said many lines run through small, rural communities.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we have a derailment with hazardous materials in one of these communities we\u2019re going to lose lives,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n Sen. Tyson Larson of O\u2019Neill opposed the override motion, calling the inspector position unnecessary.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve gotten by the last two years without this person \u2026 and there hasn\u2019t been an increase in accidents,\u201d he said. \u201cIn terms of taxpayer dollars, I just don\u2019t think that this is a necessary thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The motion failed on vote of 18-25.<\/p>\n A second Dubas motion, which would have overridden the line item veto of $45,000 for payment of state dues to the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Compact, failed 13-19.<\/p>\n Vetoed items in LB195 that were not challenged included: Capital construction<\/strong><\/p>\n Lawmakers also voted to override three line-item vetoes in LB198, which appropriates funds for capital construction and property acquisition. Vetoed were: Heineman said in his veto message that the nursing building was a lesser priority than others at the University and that savings from other construction projects should be returned to taxpayers rather than rolled into new projects.<\/p>\n The governor also said the history museum has sufficient funds to address deferred maintenance, failures in the original building systems, and fire code and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance issues. Further, he said, the Capitol Commission\u2019s budget is adequate to address priority projects at the State Capitol Building.<\/p>\n Kearney Sen. Galen Hadley supported the motion to override, saying the nursing building is needed to help alleviate the Nebraska\u2019s shortage of health care professionals. He said citizens are willing to donate money to scholarships and programs, but that the state also must do its part.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to convince the average person to contribute money to brick and mortar [projects] because they see that as the state\u2019s responsibility,\u201d Hadley said.<\/p>\n Mello said the full $6 million would be needed to update the museum building and that the number of deferred maintenance issues at the State Capitol Building \u2013 including window replacement and water damage repair \u2013 continue to grow without adequate funding to address them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Capitol is a state treasure that belongs to all Nebraskans,\u201d Mello said. \u201cThere are significant needs here.\u201d<\/p>\n The motion to override the governor\u2019s vetoes in LB198 was adopted on a 34-5 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lawmakers voted May 28 to override a little more than half of the governor\u2019s line-item vetoes of the state budget<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-12135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appropriations","tag-sen-heath-mello"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12135"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12506,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12135\/revisions\/12506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u2022 $90,880 to fund a retirement specialist position with the Public Employees Retirement Board;
\n\u2022 $100,000 to the University of Nebraska to fund a DUI recidivism study;
\n\u2022 $128,547 to fund increased staffing at the Foster Care Review Office;
\n\u2022 $300,000 to increase staffing at the Nebraska Tourism Commission;
\n\u2022 $369,001 to fund salary increases for probation officers; and
\n\u2022 $2.84 million that will delay replacement of the state\u2019s Medicaid data management system for one year.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 $2.95 million to construct a University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing building in Lincoln;
\n\u2022 $1.4 million from the $6 million allocated for renovation of the Nebraska History Museum; and
\n\u2022 $544,000 from the Capitol Commission to fund improvements to the State Capitol Building.<\/p>\n