Senator begins final year in Legislature

As many of you know, this is my 8th and final year in the Nebraska Legislature. I’m amazed by how quickly time has gone by. As I enter my final session, barring any special session, there are some things I have yet to accomplish and we will get into those a little bit later. As many of you already know, on Thursday of this week, the governor will have laid out his plan on how we will spend the $1.04 billion of ARPA money which is the America Rescue Plan Act. Not much was known previously about what the governor would like to spend that money on. There will probably be money for a new prison to replace the aging State Penitentiary in Lincoln. 

I think there will be some money for LB 406, the ‘Star Wars’ Committee which is looking at increasing tourism through improving water resources and recreation in the State of Nebraska. Some of that money will be spent at Lake McConaughy in Keith County.  Some of it will be spent in Knox County in Northeast Nebraska and some spent somewhere between Lincoln and Omaha on the Platte River corridor to provide additional water and recreation opportunities. Those impending projects will be exciting. Beyond that, there could be some additional money for broadband expansion in Nebraska to build up that broadband in unserved and underserved areas, which would be a very wise use of these funds. I don’t know if any of the money will go to roads but there is a lot of speculation there.  

In addition to the ARPA funds, the Legislature also has access to excess revenue which has come in at over $400 million above projections. Some of that money is earmarked for the Property Tax Relief Fund that you receive when you file your state income tax. A portion of the property tax that you pay to support K-12 education can be refunded to you and the balance of the excess revenue goes to the rainy day fund or the state savings account. That money going into our rainy day fund should be over $1 billion and could be accessed if the legislature chooses to do so. I am a very firm believer in having a healthy bank account, savings account if you will. We all know that the increased revenue that the state has seen these 12-18 months will not continue, at some point, we will have a downturn in the economy. We need to make sure that we have got a very healthy savings account to maintain the vital programs of the State of Nebraska that need to remain in place.

So it’ll be an interesting year. I hope that the Legislature will be very fiscally responsible. That is my intent. Just because we have excess revenue above projections and a very healthy rainy day fund does not mean that it needs to be spent. As for the ARPA funds, we are just finding out the rules on how and where that money can be utilized as we sift through that we will have a much clearer picture on where those dollars can go. There is certainly a need for continued expansion and improvement in our state. Roads are certainly the lifeblood in the State of Nebraska.  Being such a large open state, we need to have a good infrastructure to move people, goods, and services between communities in order to keep them all vibrant.