Senators make changes to highly contested property tax relief bill

With 23 days left in session, the revenue committee is confident they can get a property tax relief bill to the floor, and they can do it by next week.

“We made a path forward today, it was a very good session today, we got some of the answers off table,” Senator Mike Groene said.

Senators made two big decisions brought on by critics of LB 289.

First– they’re dropping land valuations only when it comes to the school funding formula.

“Cities, counties, NRD’s, ESU’s were all worried about losing their valuations,” Senator Lou Ann Linehan said.

That means while schools won’t be able to levy as much property taxes, but other agencies who won’t get increases in state funding, will not lose their tax money.

They also provided a solution for big schools who said under the bill they’d lose millions.

“With those changing valuations they were concerned they would lose money but we’re taking their max levy from five to 6 cents,” Groene said.

Groene said schools will likely end up with more money under the bill.

The other big concern came from industries whose tax exemptions would be taken away. While they aren’t thinking about giving them back, Linehan said they’re going to try and be more deliberate in their selections.

“We’re going to go back and look at all the exemptions again, maybe expand the base more,” Linehan said.

They also voted to forward a bill that would cap all property tax levies to three percent.

The committee will reconvene on Monday, they hope to vote a new and improved LB–289 to the floor.

Linehan, while confident that they can get a bill passed, said if this doesn’t happen, the state’s situation could get much worse.

She says there’s a petition looming that’d provide income tax credits for property tax paid, but would force the state to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars from state services.