{"id":32156,"date":"2022-03-25T11:30:46","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T17:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=32156"},"modified":"2022-03-25T11:30:46","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T17:30:46","slug":"budget-package-clears-second-round-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=32156","title":{"rendered":"Budget package clears second round"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers gave second-round approval March 24 to three bills comprising the Appropriations Committee\u2019s mid-biennium budget adjustment package.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. John Stinner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several amendments were offered during debate on LB1012, which would authorize and provide for certain fund transfers, create funds and change and eliminate provisions regarding a fund.<\/p>\n

Among those was an amendment offered by Henderson Sen. Curt Friesen to strike creation of the Military Base Development and Support Fund, which would be used to fund a series of projects at Offutt Air Force Base.<\/p>\n

Friesen said it was a \u201cstep too far\u201d to continue spending tax dollars on Offutt when the state has other priorities.<\/p>\n

Several senators defended the funding, including Gordon Sen. Tom Brewer. He said U.S. Strategic Command, headquartered at Offutt, is a \u201cprize\u201d that other states envy and should not be sacrificed to \u201cbudget maneuvers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is such a small piece of the budget that we\u2019re talking about here [and] the idea that that\u2019s the quick go-to place to steal money from the purse, I think is wrong-headed,\u201d Brewer said.<\/p>\n

Friesen withdrew the amendment. He then offered another, which failed on a 6-13 vote, that would have taken a $14 million transfer from the Governor\u2019s Emergency Cash Fund to the Cash Reserve Fund and instead directed it to the Property Tax Credit Cash Fund.<\/p>\n

Brainard Sen. Bruce Bostelman offered an amendment, adopted 42-0, that would ensure that a $955,000 transfer from the interest on the Nebraska Telecommunications Universal Service Fund to the 211 Cash Fund is a one-time transfer rather than an annual one.<\/p>\n

He said the USF must be protected in the future for its intended purpose of making universal access to telecommunications services available to everyone in the state.<\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. Mike McDonnell, whose LB911 initiated the transfer, supported the amendment. He said he would find a different source of funding going forward for the 211 Information and Referral Network, which is a free hotline that connects Nebraskans with non-emergency health and human services.<\/p>\n

Stinner offered a cloture motion after four hours of debate, which was adopted 43-2, and lawmakers advanced LB1012 to final reading on a voice vote.<\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop offered an amendment, adopted 42-0, to LB1011, the mainline budget bill. In addition to a series of technical changes, the amendment would correct the omission of a $5 million transfer to the Governor\u2019s Emergency Cash Fund.<\/p>\n

A second technical amendment offered by Lathrop was adopted 39-2. Senators then adopted a cloture motion on a 42-1 vote and advanced LB1011 to final reading by voice vote.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers also advanced LB1013, which would change provisions related to the Cash Reserve Fund, to final reading by voice vote following the 41-3 adoption of a cloture motion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers gave second-round approval March 24 to three bills comprising the Appropriations Committee\u2019s mid-biennium budget adjustment package.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32141,"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":[5],"tags":[149],"class_list":["post-32156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-appropriations","tag-sen-john-stinner"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/StinnerHilgersMurman3-23-22a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32156","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=32156"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32170,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32156\/revisions\/32170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}