Ricketts Criticizes Unemployment, Gambling, Pension Bills

Gov. Pete Ricketts took the unusual step Tuesday of publicly criticizing legislative proposals on gambling, unemployment benefits, and Omaha school pensions. And lawmakers advanced separate proposals to spur economic growth in rural and urban areas.

Often when reporters ask Gov. Pete Ricketts his opinion of a bill moving through the Legislature, he’ll say he won’t comment until it reaches his desk in its final form.

Not so Tuesday. In his weekly column, Ricketts discussed three bills he says he’s opposing.

The first is one Ricketts characterized as “Bailouts for Omaha Public School Pensions.” It’s a proposal he says would have the state take over running the day to day affairs of the pension system. Ricketts say that’s a step toward having the state assume financial liability for the pension fund, which faces an $848 million shortfall due to mismanagement.

Sen. Mark Kolterman, sponsor of the bill, suggested Ricketts concerns were misplaced.

“I think it’s unfortunate that the governor would come out in a statement such as the one he did, without having the bill come out of committee – he hasn’t even seen the final product yet. And secondly without sitting down with all the players concerned and talking through his concerns,” Kolterman said.

Kolterman said the bill specifies in about five different places that the state is not assuming Omaha Public Schools pension liability. He said the state has shown it can run a pension system well, like it does for all the state’s other teachers.

Ricketts also criticized another proposal which he said would give unemployment benefits to some "illegal immigrants." The bill, by Sen. Mike McDonnell, would make unemployment benefits available to DACA youth, as well as refugees, asylum seekers and others who are authorized to work in the United States.

In his column, Ricketts said “The current crisis at our nation’s border with Mexico shows the consequences of watering down immigration laws. Nebraska shouldn’t follow suit.”

McDonnell said the idea of his bill is to help people who have been legally working in Nebraska.

“These are people that are here in our community, paying taxes, authorized to work here, have Social Security numbers and are a part of the community and because of a glitch, I believe, with our law on the terminology vs. 49 other states that have taken care of this, these people aren’t getting the benefits that the employer has paid for on their behalf,” McDonnell said.

The third proposal Ricketts criticized is the bill to implement the initiative approved by voters last fall that authorized casinos at the state’s racetracks. Ricketts zeroed in on a particular part of the bill that allows keno operators to operate electronically, allowing customers to use debit cards or payment apps instead of cash. In his column, Ricketts said the focus should be on implementing what voters approved, and that the people did not vote to authorize electronic keno.

Sen. Tom Briese, sponsor of the bill, acknowledged the keno provisions were added to the bill without a public hearing. That hearing will probably be held next week. Briese said even though he supported the keno provisions at the first round of voting, Ricketts concerns will be taken into account.

“We’re going to have a hearing on that provision, and it may not survive. We may move to pull it out of the bill at some point here, and his concerns about that will enter into the decision,” Briese said.

Briese said he thinks the governor understands the portions of the bill implementing the will of the voters to permit casinos at racetracks need to pass. Asked about this, and why he was speaking out now, Ricketts spokesman Taylor Gage said “The Governor has significant concerns about the bill in its current form, which he outlined in the column. The Governor has commented on all three of these policy areas in the past, and his opposition to these bills is consistent with positions he’s taken on these issues. “

Also Tuesday, senators advanced separate bills aimed at promoting economic development in rural and urban areas. The rural bill, sponsored by Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte, would make $5 million available each of the next two years, and projects spending $50 million over 10 years, to subsidize the cost of establishing industrial parks along railroad lines. Groene said rural parts of the state are losing population, and this could help bring young people back.

“We talk a lot about brain drain. But I travel the front range of Colorado and you can pull into any construction site – any – housing, commercial – and start asking the people working there ‘Where are you from?’ and I will guarantee you won’t get past five people before somebody says ‘Nebraska.’ We have a blue collar working drain in this state also,” Groene said.

Sen. Curt Friesen of Henderson supported the proposal.

“We look in rural areas. We have room in our schools. We have room in our facilities out there. We’re running out of kids to send to the east. So we need to turn this around, we need to get rural Nebraska running again, and I think this might be just the thing that gets it started,” Friesen said.

And Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn quoted the late Sen. Dwite Pedersen, who she said used to say ‘You are what you do and everyone needs a job.”

“When you meet people you tell them who you are by saying what you do. People need jobs. That’s the real way to grow greater Nebraska and all of Nebraska,” Linehan said.

The bill would provide $2 of state money for every $1 of private investment up to $2.5 million, and $5 of state money for every dollar of private investment after that, although supporters said federal dollars might be available. It got first round approval on a vote of 42-0.

Senators also approved a proposal by Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha that he said would benefit poor neighborhoods in that city and Lincoln – places where unemployment is at least one and a half times the state average, and at least 20 percent of people have incomes below the federal poverty line. His said his proposal would offer tax incentives to small businesses in areas like north Omaha and south Omaha that aren’t suited for big projects subsidized by the Imagine Nebraska Act because of limited land availability.

“So you might have a corner lot and having a $5 million investment to qualify for the big Imagine Act just is not likely. But to have a $500,000 or a $600,000 infrastructure investment on that corner is very likely but they don’t qualify for any additional tax breaks or tax credits. This would allow them to qualify for something,” Wayne said.

The tax incentives are expected to cost the state treasury about $3.5 million next fiscal year. Senators voted 45-0 first round approval for the bill.

Editor's Note: The term "illegal immigrants" was placed in quotation marks from the original published version of this story to clarify that was the term used by Governor Ricketts to describe people living in the country illegally. NET News would normally describe such people as "people living in the country illegally" based on the Associated Press writing style guidelines.