{"id":40277,"date":"2026-03-05T15:40:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T21:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=40277"},"modified":"2026-03-05T15:40:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T21:40:35","slug":"bill-to-require-ded-grant-awards-clears-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=40277","title":{"rendered":"Bill to require DED grant awards clears first round"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A program aimed at benefitting Nebraska\u2019s small businesses would be required to award a minimum dollar amount of grant funds under a bill advanced from general file March 4.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_37085\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37085\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"37085\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?attachment_id=37085\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenClouse_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;Stanley Clouse, District 37. Nebraska Legislature - 2025 Incoming Senators. November 20, 2024. Photo by Craig Chandler \/ University Communication.&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1732107891&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;163&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=\"SenClouse_inline\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. Stan Clouse&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. Stan Clouse&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenClouse_inline.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-37085\" src=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenClouse_inline.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. Stan Clouse\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37085\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Stan Clouse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Currently, the state Department of Economic Development has the option to distribute up to $3 million in grants annually through the Microenterprise Assistance Program under the Business Innovation Act. LB1205, sponsored by Kearney Sen. Stan Clouse, would require DED to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Clouse said the measure would ensures that of the $15 million that will flow to the Business Innovation Cash Fund under another proposal moving through the Legislature, $3 million will be allocated to the microenterprise program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe investing in Nebraska and promoting economic development are critical parts of our job as state senators,\u201d he said. \u201cLB1205 is an example of both, enabling small businesses to \u2026 thrive all across the state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers advanced LB1205 to select file 38-0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A program aimed at benefitting Nebraska\u2019s small businesses would be required to award a minimum dollar amount of grant funds under a bill advanced from general file March 4.<\/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":[6],"tags":[308],"class_list":["post-40277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking-commerce-and-insurance","tag-sen-stan-clouse"],"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\/40277","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=40277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40279,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40277\/revisions\/40279"}],"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=40277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}