Gov. Jim Pillen revealed his budgetary and legislative priorities in his State of the State address to lawmakers Jan. 15. Top priorities for the governor include limiting government spending, improving the state\u2019s school funding system and reinstating a winner-take-all system for allocating Nebraska\u2019s Electoral College votes.<\/p>\n
Pillen touted several proposals intended to shrink the size of government and lower government spending by .5% percent over the next biennium, including \u201ccommon sense\u201d adjustments to the state tax code, eliminating duplicative boards and commissions and focusing on the state\u2019s needs rather than wants.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo shrink government, we must eliminate its obsolete parts,\u201d Pillen said. \u201cWe must continually assess which parts of government are still of use to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The governor also proposed the consolidation of two major state agencies \u2014 the Department of Environment and Energy and the Department of Natural Resources \u2014 which he said needlessly divide the state\u2019s focus on water quality and quantity.<\/p>\n
Under his proposal, a newly established Department of Water, Energy and Environment would be solely responsible for overseeing the state\u2019s system of surface waterways and the Ogallala Aquifer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWater is the lifeblood of Nebraska,\u201d Pillen said, \u201cand what we do to protect our quantity and to improve our quality of water \u2026 will be our legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pillen also discussed the importance of reevaluating the state\u2019s school funding system. In the last 25 years, he said, the number of school districts receiving state aid has decreased from 226 to just 60. That was not the intent of the original law, he said.<\/p>\n
To correct the situation, Pillen said he will establish a \u201cblue ribbon\u201d commission of experts to \u201ccut through the bureaucracy\u201d and recommend a new school funding model for Nebraska.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to have to have the courage to make serious and lasting fixes to the system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The governor also prioritized eliminating the current practice of allocating three of Nebraska\u2019s Electoral College votes by congressional district, proposing instead to adopt a winner-take-all system. For three decades, Pillen said, Nebraskans have divided their voices and diminished the state\u2019s impact on presidential elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith no presidential election around the corner, there\u2019s no better time than now to dispassionately deliver on the will of the majority of this state,\u201d he said, \u201cto honor our constitutional founding and unify our voice in our most important exercise of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Jim Pillen revealed his budgetary and legislative priorities in his State of the State address to lawmakers Jan. 15. Top priorities for the governor include limiting government spending, improving the state\u2019s school funding system and reinstating a winner-take-all system for allocating Nebraska\u2019s Electoral College votes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36971,"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":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ceremonies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SoS_1-15-25a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36981","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=36981"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36985,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36981\/revisions\/36985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}