{"id":38586,"date":"2025-04-24T12:10:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T18:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=38586"},"modified":"2025-04-24T12:10:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T18:10:53","slug":"expanded-access-to-rural-fire-protection-funding-advanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=38586","title":{"rendered":"Expanded access to rural fire protection funding advanced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers gave first-round approval April 23 to a measure intended to help additional rural fire protection districts qualify for state financial aid.<figure id=\"attachment_37100\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37100\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"37100\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?attachment_id=37100\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenWordekemper_inline.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"200,300\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Office of University Communication&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS R5&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Dan McKeon, District 41. Legislature - 2025 Incoming Senators. November 20, 2024. Photo by Craig Chandler \/ University Communication.&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1729275105&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;\\u00a9 2019, The Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved.&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;135&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;100&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.00625&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Mark Wilkins Lab&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"SenWordekemper_inline\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. Dave Wordekemper&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. Dave Wordekemper&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenWordekemper_inline.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenWordekemper_inline.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. Dave Wordekemper\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-full wp-image-37100\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37100\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Dave Wordekemper<\/figcaption><\/figure> <\/p>\n<p>The Mutual Finance Assistance Act, funded by state insurance premium tax proceeds, provides aid to mutual finance organizations and rural or suburban fire protection districts for equipment, operations and training.  <\/p>\n<p>To qualify for assistance, at least 80% of the population of any county included in the MFO or district must reside outside the limits of any first, primary or metropolitan class city in the county. <\/p>\n<p>LB399, sponsored by Fremont Sen. Dave Wordekemper, would decrease the threshold to 60%. <\/p>\n<p>He said the adjustment would allow three or four additional counties to qualify for funding and ensure that current member counties can continue to receive assistance as their populations change.  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis change recognizes our state\u2019s evolving demographics while still maintaining the program\u2019s focus on rural communities,\u201d Wordekemper said. <\/p>\n<p>The bill advanced to select file on a vote of 36-0. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers gave first-round approval April 23 to a measure intended to help additional rural fire protection districts qualify for state financial aid. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36723,"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":[17],"tags":[303],"class_list":["post-38586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-revenue","tag-sen-dave-wordekemper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/UpdateBlogPhoto-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38586","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=38586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38588,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38586\/revisions\/38588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}