2008
Post Season #1
April 26, 2008

Hi

The 2008 Nebraska legislative session was the most productive of my experience. It was not planned that way, but several heavy issues came at us and we were able to deal with them, mostly through substantial, heavy, committee work.

Shortage of road funds. Inflation brought us to the point where we could only maintain streets and roads, while $75 million in Washington (committed to Nebraska) was lost if we could not begin to come up with a 20% match. Much more to be done, but roads are about our economic health as a state.

School aid formula. Our subsidy of public schools was not fair to communities which have a large population of non-English students. We in Omaha have 40 languages we must respond to regularly, plus others on a random basis. The constitution requires us to educate every resident child. Not dealing with it, by the state, would be a hit on property taxes in six cities.

State Fair. I did not expect consensus on where to go with the fair, but the parties came to agreement, thankfully on the least expensive plan. Leaving the fair where it is and fixing up the place was more expensive. I wish we could have a debate on what the fair should look like ten years from now, but legislative bodies do not do long term well. We want the cheapest budget for this year and ignore future expense.

Water fight with Kansas. We are loaning money to folks who live near the Republican River, which they will pay back through taxes. They will send more water down the river toward Kansas. This is tough and unfair, but again almost everyone agreed to do it. Here is one example of why it is not fair. The interstate contract was drawn in the 40s, when a heavy rain ran off the soil to the river and to Kansas. Today, farmers have no-till farming, which holds the rainfall and allows the water to soak in. Water no longer heads for Kansas, so the river is low. The 40s model is not valid, but Kansas refuses to review it.

Stem Cell fuss. It was just that, a fuss. But we did it and gained an agreement not to talk about it for several years. Cheers.

Two vetoes came after we adjourned, so we could not address them. Each veto had a noisy lobby, but the bills were in the best interest of the state as I see it. One would have provided mental health coverage (along with physical health coverage) for volunteer fire and emergency response teams, under Workers Comp. As usual in the decades of debate on mental health, the opponents had scare stories on cost. No documentation, just talk. We checked with an insurance company and found it would cost about $2 per year per volunteer. The cities response was 1. we train the volunteers to not have mental trauma (I was told that personally!) and 2. lets arrange to cover it with health insurance. O yes, $2 per year buys tons of health insurance! Their talk lacked reality.

The second veto was on a plan for recycling computers, which have a great amount of toxic materials and may not go in the land fills. A computer monitor has from 4 to 8 pounds of lead, plus mercury, arsenic, selenium and cadmium. Huge health problems.

The fret was on cost. Understand, you and I pay that cost under any plan. Three options are presented: 1. add the cost on each new unit, with company to recycle; 2. add it to the bill as a disposal cost, like tires, when you buy, with company to recycle; or 3. pay companies like Goodwill to recycle as a service, paying the difference between the cost and the value of the recycled materials.

We proposed that companies either give help to Goodwill or do it themselves. Or they could split it, doing 30% as an example. The companies screamed that this would cost the consumers. Hello? We always pay. There is no tooth fairy. The veto means that in Nebraska we have no plan and the toxic materials will stack in yards. I wonder how much that will cost. To be fair, the companies do not want to pay per unit because that would give away trade secrets, showing what they sell. However, they do not say that out loud.

• Ongoing concerns, for next year:
  • How to give more relief to property taxes. (We have reduced them by one third.)
  • What to do on the vetoed items, which will not go away.
  • How to bring teachers salaries up from 44th place as a state, without spending money.
  • How to provide health care for public workers, without spending money.
  • How to provide secure driver license ID for our people, without spending money.
  • How to maintain adequate streets and roads, without spending money.
  • How to deal with the enormous costs of drug addiction, without spending money.
  • How to develop more entrepreneur businesses in Nebraska.
  • How to enhance research capabilities of our colleges and university.
  • How to protect children from abuse in the home.
  • How to provide appropriate care for disabled persons.
  • How to help parents to be more involved in their childrens education.
  • How to provide much improved educational experiences for preschool children.
  • How to deal with the high rate of injury and death to teens, especially from alcohol.
  • How to get the public to stop condoning drunk driving, which costs us multimillions.
  • How to involve the public in stronger support for arts and humanities, to improve us.

And how to do all this without Lowen. Sigh.

I will develop brief papers on some of these subjects. Will send you these monthly and hope you find more info helpful. Again, if you want additional subjects, or if you want my staff to research how to do a bill on a particular subject, please let me know. We three are in this full time for the rest of the year.

Cheers

Lowen