Pillen urges spending cuts, ending sales tax exemptions to reduce property taxes

Nebraskans paid $5.3 billion dollars in property taxes in 2023, according to the Governor’s Policy Research Office.

Gov. Jim Pillen wants to cut that amount by 40%, or more than $2 billion, during a special legislative session later this summer.

At a town hall in Beatrice Friday, Pillen said he intends to present a plan to cut spending by $500 million by streamlining government operations.

“We're just doing business practices of improving processes, streamlining, looking at things as a systems approach and making a difference,” he said.

Pillen also plans to increase the sales tax base by ending some sales tax exemptions, which he says contributes to the state’s high property taxes.

“That's poor, poor policy, picking winners and losers,” Pillen said. “We just got to get back to common sense. Broad tax base makes good sense.”

A bill that would have increased state sales tax revenue by removing sales tax exemptions was indefinitely postponed in the legislature in April.

A total of 28 senators voted to advance the bill to final reading, but the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Lou Ann Linehan, later requested the bill be withdrawn because of a lack of support.

Both Democrats and Republicans were split in their support of the bill in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska legislature.

Pillen encouraged Nebraskans to contact their state legislators in support of his tax proposal.

“If the citizens of Nebraska aren’t engaged with the members of the unicameral, they can be rest assured special interest groups are, and they don’t have the citizens of Nebraska’s back.”

Pillen’s Beatrice town hall was his third event across the state pitching his tax plan.

Future property tax town halls are planned in Plattsmouth, York and Seward.