Pillen: Year 1 property tax changes "not the success that we wanted"
By Fred Knapp , Senior Reporter/Producer Nebraska Public Media
Dec. 4, 2023, midnight ·

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Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen says this year’s effort to reduce school property taxes has not been as successful as he hoped.
This spring, the Legislature significantly increased state funding for schools, by $324 million. The idea was that it would let schools reduce how much they raised from property taxes.
In some districts, that’s what happened. In a news conference Monday, Pillen said in 92 of Nebraska’s 244 districts, property taxes went down. But in the others, they remained the same or went up.
“It's unacceptable… Year One is not where we wanted to be. We had a number of districts that operated really well… but Year One was not the success that we wanted it to be,” Pillen said.
Pillen said part of the reason involved exceptions to a 3 percent cap on overall school budget increases. More than 70 percent of school boards voted to override that cap.
Pillen said he’ll work harder to convince schools to trust that the extra state funding will continue. But he also said if tax increases continue, he’ll consider a stricter cap. That’s an idea that has been proposed but failed repeatedly in recent legislative sessions.
You can see how taxes changed in every district in the state by clicking here.