{"id":40077,"date":"2026-02-19T19:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=40077"},"modified":"2026-02-19T19:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:40:18","slug":"relaxed-creative-district-grant-requirement-clears-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=40077","title":{"rendered":"Relaxed creative district grant requirement clears first round"},"content":{"rendered":"

A measure intended to give the state Department of Economic Development more flexibility when granting certain funds advanced from general file Feb. 19.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. George Dungan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Currently, the department may award grants to municipalities under the Civic and Community Center Financing Act. Grants are funded by a portion of the state sales tax revenue generated by arenas and associated hotels and retailers.<\/p>\n

Municipalities currently must partner with a certified creative district to be eligible for a grant. Authorized by the Legislature in 2020, creative districts are certified by the Nebraska Arts Council and distinguished by geography and artistic or cultural activities or facilities.<\/p>\n

LB778, introduced by Lincoln Sen. George Dungan, instead would require the department to give preference to any municipality that is partnered with a creative district when awarding grants under the act from July 1, 2027, to June 30, 2028.<\/p>\n

Dungan said the change would prioritize communities that partner with creative districts without preventing otherwise eligible cities from receiving grants.<\/p>\n

The bill advanced to select file on a vote of 31-0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A measure intended to give the state Department of Economic Development more flexibility when granting certain funds advanced from general file Feb. 19. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40048,"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":[278],"class_list":["post-40077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-revenue","tag-sen-george-dungan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/LB778Dungan2-19-26a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40077","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=40077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40079,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40077\/revisions\/40079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}