{"id":20542,"date":"2017-01-31T17:02:36","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T23:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=20542"},"modified":"2017-01-31T17:02:36","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T23:02:36","slug":"elimination-of-school-bus-permits-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=20542","title":{"rendered":"Elimination of school bus permits proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bill that would streamline the licensing process for school bus operators was heard by the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee Jan. 31.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Sen. Suzanne Geist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB347, introduced by Lincoln Sen. Suzanne Geist, would eliminate the school bus permit and its associated fees for any person operating a school bus carrying 16 or more passengers. Geist said the bill is part of a larger effort to eliminate unnecessary occupational licensing.<\/p>\n

In addition to securing a commercial driver license, school bus operators still would be accountable to state Department of Education requirements, including a criminal background check, drug and alcohol testing, specialized training and an annual physical exam.<\/p>\n

Rhonda Lahm, state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) director, testified in support of the bill. She said Nebraska currently is the only state that requires a school bus permit.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to a 2015 study by the White House, 25 percent of professions in Nebraska require an occupational license,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current process is a duplicative process that puts an extra burden on school bus drivers and the DMV,\u201d Lahm said, adding that licensure disproportionately affects lower income professions.<\/p>\n

No one testified in opposition and the committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill that would streamline the licensing process for school bus operators was heard by the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee Jan. 31.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20535,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[186],"class_list":["post-20542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transportation-and-telecommunications","tag-sen-suzanne-geist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/LB347Geist1-31-17a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20542","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=20542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20543,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20542\/revisions\/20543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}