{"id":25166,"date":"2019-02-28T12:14:11","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T18:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25166"},"modified":"2019-02-28T12:14:11","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T18:14:11","slug":"statutory-minimum-proposed-for-property-tax-relief-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25166","title":{"rendered":"Statutory minimum proposed for property tax relief fund"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Legislature would direct $275 million each year to the state\u2019s property tax credit program under a bill heard Feb. 27 by the Revenue Committee.<figure id=\"attachment_20149\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20149\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"20149\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?attachment_id=20149\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenLindstrom_inline.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"297,445\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"senlindstrom_inline\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. Brett Lindstrom&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. Brett Lindstrom&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenLindstrom_inline-200x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenLindstrom_inline.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenLindstrom_inline-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. Brett Lindstrom\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20149\" srcset=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenLindstrom_inline-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SenLindstrom_inline.jpg 297w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-20149\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Brett Lindstrom<\/figcaption><\/figure> <\/p>\n<p>The program uses state sales and income tax revenue to provide Nebraskans with credits meant to offset part of what they pay in property taxes. <\/p>\n<p>LB303, introduced by Omaha Sen. Brett Lindstrom on behalf of Gov. Pete Ricketts, would direct the Legislature to place $224 million in the fund in tax year 2018, the same as in 2017. For tax year 2019 and beyond, the bill would set the amount in the fund at no less than $275 million. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a straightforward approach to tax relief without imposing a tax shift from other sources of revenue,\u201d Lindstrom said. <\/p>\n<p>Ricketts testified in support of the bill, although he acknowledged that it is not by itself a solution to the state\u2019s high property taxes. He said setting the minimum amount of property tax relief in statute would make it harder for future Legislatures to reduce the fund and would give Nebraskans certainty about how much they could expect to receive in credits each year. <\/p>\n<p>Shane Greckel, a farmer from Bloomfield, also testified in support. He said the property tax credit fund provides relief directly to farmers and ranchers, who then spend that money in their communities. While the credit might amount to only $10 or $20 per acre, Greckel said, a farmer\u2019s profits might be a mere $5 per acre. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to work on extraordinarily thin margins, so any amount helps,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Testifying in opposition to the bill was Sarah Curry, policy director for the Platte Institute. Instead of adding money to the property tax credit fund, she said, the Legislature should seek structural tax reform that limits local tax levies and changes the way property is valued for tax purposes. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s clear that the property tax credit relief fund policy is not working to fundamentally lower property taxes and does not create lasting reform, only temporary relief,\u201d Curry said.<\/p>\n<p>Renee Fry, executive director of OpenSky Policy Institute, gave neutral testimony on the bill. She said the property tax credit fund has done little since its inception to reduce the state\u2019s reliance on property taxes to fund public schools.<\/p>\n<p>Fry noted that the Appropriations Committee\u2019s preliminary budget would reduce state aid to schools by $38.5 million from the governor\u2019s initial budget proposal. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are fully funding the increase in the property tax credit program that is in this bill but at the same time reducing our funding commitment to [state aid], which is directly counter to the structural changes we think we should be making,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p>The committee took no immediate action on the bill. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Legislature would direct $275 million each year to the state\u2019s property tax credit program under a bill heard Feb. 27 by the Revenue Committee. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25149,"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":[17],"tags":[140],"class_list":["post-25166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-revenue","tag-sen-brett-lindstrom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/LB303Lindstrom2-27-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25166","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=25166"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25168,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25166\/revisions\/25168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}