{"id":31666,"date":"2022-02-18T10:32:09","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T16:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31666"},"modified":"2022-02-18T16:07:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T22:07:13","slug":"volunteer-entity-would-become-state-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31666","title":{"rendered":"Volunteer entity would become state agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nebraska Volunteer Service Commission, also known as ServeNebraska, would be restructured as a state agency under a bill heard Feb. 17 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Mike McDonnell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The commission currently is administratively under the state Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n

LB910, introduced by Omaha Sen. Mike McDonnell, would make the commission a stand-alone state agency. The 15 to 25 commission members would include the state commissioner of education and governor-appointed community, labor, youth and business leaders.<\/p>\n

Among other provisions, the bill would require the commission to:
\n\u2022 recommend to the governor a three-year national community service plan to be updated annually;
\n\u2022 collaborate with and provide technical assistance to community and nonprofit organizations;
\n\u2022 administer, oversee and monitor the performance and progress of funded programs; and
\n\u2022 coordinate with other state agencies that administer programs under the federal Community Services Block Grant program.<\/p>\n

McDonnell said the bill would stabilize ServeNebraska and help it operate more effectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill will align ServeNebraska with other similar organizations, such as the other state boards and commissions,\u201d McDonnell said.<\/p>\n

Marjorie Maas, chairperson of ServeNebraska, testified in support of LB910. She said ServeNebraska operates under an executive order signed by then-governor Ben Nelson in 1994, meaning it could be eliminated by a future governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a statutory agency will provide the commission with stability and preserve its autonomy,\u201d Maas said.<\/p>\n

Former Nebraska first lady Sally Ganem also testified in support of the bill. She said reorganizing ServeNebraska as a state agency would help it carry out critical programming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese programs keep our kids in school, help our children learn to read and write \u2026 and help prepare our students for the next century\u2019s workforce,\u201d Ganem said.<\/p>\n

No one testified in opposition and the committee took no immediate action on LB910.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nebraska Volunteer Service Commission, also known as ServeNebraska, would be restructured as a state agency under a bill heard Feb. 17 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[194],"class_list":["post-31666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-mike-mcdonnell"],"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\/31666","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=31666"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31691,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31666\/revisions\/31691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}