{"id":38375,"date":"2025-04-04T11:09:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T17:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=38375"},"modified":"2025-04-04T11:09:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T17:09:15","slug":"funds-for-state-agencies-supporting-aging-nebraskans-amended-advanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=38375","title":{"rendered":"Funds for state agencies supporting aging Nebraskans amended, advanced"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bill intended to address a budget deficit within agencies that support aging Nebraskans was amended to include a juvenile support pilot program before advancing to select file April 3.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Sen. Glen Meyer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB382, introduced by Pender Sen. Glen Meyer, would expand permissible uses of the Medicaid Managed Care Excess Profit Fund to include reimbursement for the cost of services provided by the eight Nebraska Area Agencies on Aging.<\/p>\n

The bill states legislative intent to appropriate $2 million in fiscal year 2025-26 and FY2026-27 from the fund to be used for eligible activities under the Nebraska Community Aging Services Act \u2014 such as nutrition, transportation and in-home care support services \u2014 distributed equally to each of the eight agencies.<\/p>\n

Meyer said the bill would alleviate a $4 million dollar budget deficit within the agencies that provide services to over 36,000 Nebraska residents \u2014 including providing over 1.36 million meals in 2024. The percentage of Nebraskans over age 65 is increasing at a rapid rate, he said, and lawmakers need to ensure that the state\u2019s most vulnerable residents are taken care of.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany Nebraska seniors depend on these kinds of programs in order to remain living independently and self-sufficiently in their own homes,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n

The Medicaid Managed Care Excess Profit Fund had a $10 million balance at the start of the current fiscal year, he said, with another $20 million in deposits expected before the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Several lawmakers said they supported LB382 but expressed concern that senators had rejected the previous measure on the day\u2019s agenda, a bill sponsored by Omaha Sen. Terrell McKinney that would use the same funding mechanism.<\/p>\n

That measure, LB48, would create a pilot program to provide support services for families and youth involved in or at risk of entering the juvenile justice system.<\/p>\n

Lincoln Sen. George Dungan said senators are responsible for helping the most vulnerable in the state, wherever they fall on the societal spectrum. He noted that the $1 million in annual proposed funding for McKinney\u2019s bill would be a \u201cdrop in the larger bucket\u201d of a fund created to serve the same purpose as the Medicaid program \u2014 assisting vulnerable Nebraskans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing we can do is utilize those funds for exactly what they\u2019re supposed to do, which is to help people,\u201d Dungan said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha offered a motion to indefinitely postpone LB382 in order to give senators time to reconsider their earlier rejection of McKinney\u2019s LB48.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vote that was taken on the last bill was egregious,\u201d Cavanaugh said. \u201cTo not move a senator\u2019s priority bill from general to select [file] because you think it\u2019s \u2018unnecessary\u2019 \u2026 is not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

The motion was rejected. Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln then offered an amendment to incorporate the \u201cessence\u201d of McKinney\u2019s LB48 into the proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems that we have a prime opportunity to reconsider our treatment of that measure, as Sen. Meyer\u2019s bill which was next on the agenda today \u2026 touches upon the same areas,\u201d Conrad said.<\/p>\n

Following the 27-7 adoption of the Conrad amendment, lawmakers advanced LB382 to select file on a 37-2 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill intended to address a budget deficit within agencies that support aging Nebraskans was amended to include a juvenile support pilot program before advancing to select file April 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38338,"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":[12],"tags":[304],"class_list":["post-38375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-human-services","tag-sen-glen-meyer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/LB382Meyer4-3-25a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38375","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=38375"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38377,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38375\/revisions\/38377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}