{"id":28962,"date":"2021-01-28T15:34:04","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T21:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=28962"},"modified":"2021-01-28T15:34:04","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T21:34:04","slug":"review-of-state-agencies-sought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=28962","title":{"rendered":"Review of state agencies sought"},"content":{"rendered":"

State agencies, boards, departments and councils would undergo an efficiency review under a bill considered Jan. 28 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Tom Briese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB213, introduced by Albion Sen. Tom Briese, would require the state Department of Administrative Services to contract with an outside firm to conduct the reviews, which would seek ways to reduce costs, identify potential new sources of funding other than tax increases and make government more accountable to Nebraskans.<\/p>\n

According to the department\u2019s fiscal note, such a review would cost an estimated $4 million.<\/p>\n

Briese said Nebraska currently has the 14th highest state spending rate in the country. Several other states have undergone similar audits and implemented changes that resulted in millions in savings, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal here isn\u2019t to cut costs by eliminating programs or reducing the services that government in Nebraska is providing,\u201d Briese said, \u201cthe core goal of this legislation is to make sure those programs and services are offering those taxpayers the most bang for their buck.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Nabity of Omaha spoke in support of the bill. He said across-the-board cuts in government spending are \u201ccruel,\u201d but efficiency audits could reveal targeted savings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the only kind way to look for government efficiency,\u201d Nabity said.<\/p>\n

DAS Director Jason Jackson testified against the bill. He said state government efficiency has greatly improved under the current administration and that LB213 would be redundant and unlikely to find significant savings.<\/p>\n

\u201cA successful government efficiency operation is one that\u2019s imbued in our culture,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019ve invested so much in training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nebraska Association of Public Employees Executive Director Justin Hubly also testified against LB213. Low wages and overtime restrictions have led to a high turnover rate among state employees, he said, increasing expenses due to training new employees and hiring contract workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cCutting costs often doesn\u2019t translate to efficiency and in fact often results in significantly higher costs,\u201d Hubly said.<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State agencies, boards, departments and councils would undergo an efficiency review under a bill considered Jan. 28 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28926,"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":[11],"tags":[185],"class_list":["post-28962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-tom-briese"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/LB213Briese1-28-21a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28962","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=28962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28963,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28962\/revisions\/28963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}