Nebraska legislators advance budget after cutting private school scholarships, child care subsidies

Lawmakers breezed through budget bills Thursday after decreasing child care subsidies and removing scholarships for students in private or religious schools.

These were sticking points for many senators, who twice halted the budget in its tracks in an effort to keep the scholarships in the budget. After hours of debate earlier in the session, senators advanced the budget, with 33 votes and none against, first thing Thursday morning with no further debate.

Both the scholarships and maintaining current child care subsidies would have cost the state more than $3 million each. By advancing the budget, lawmakers have effectively brought a budget deficit from $471.5 million at the start of the session down to $38 million. Upcoming revenue bills could, either through income or budget cuts, close that gap by roughly $37 million.

The threshold for the child care subsidies decreased from 185% of the federal poverty line to 130%, officially ending a pandemic era increase that made a $20,000 difference for families of four.

“Child care subsidies are not removed at all, they’re returning to what they have been in statute,” Sen. Rob Clements, chair of the appropriations committee said. “Just wanted to make that clear.”

Clements said after reviewing the votes for the budget, he discovered that neither the scholarships nor the child care subsidies could have gone forward. Putting one or even both of them in the budget has prompted the opposition of one or the other measure to vote against the budget. This was unlikely to change. Since the legislature’s only constitutional mandate is to balance a budget, both were taken out. Clements said this was not a compromise: it was the only way forward.

Sen. Danielle Conrad later argued that the budget benefits the wealthy and nickels and dimes working Nebraskans. Meanwhile, the next biennium budget is still in a near $780 million deficit.

“We’re staring down the barrel of a billion-dollar structural budget deficit that we’re going to have to contend with in just a few short months,” Conrad said. “And something has got to give.”

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