I sat down with Governor Pillen this week and spent an hour talking about property taxes and his plan to get Nebraskans some relief. Here are my thoughts. First, we need to look at the facts of the Nebraska property tax system and more importantly, the revenue of the system. In 2003, Nebraska collected $2 billion in property taxes. By 2011, it was $3 billion, by 2017, $4 billion and 2022, $5 billion. Last year the increase was about $300 million. So, next year, our property taxes will be going up a million dollars a day, if we haven’t achieved it already. That’s a problem, but not a property tax problem, it’s a spending problem and property taxes are merely a symptom of the overspending.

Property Tax – Cut fifty percent: Good!

Hard Cap on Property Tax: Good!

This provision puts a cap on the growth of your property tax at zero percent or the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This stops taxing entities from looking at us as opportunities to plunder to pay for special interests. “Here’s your budget, MAKE IT WORK.” This doesn’t mean our property taxes are frozen, Nebraska’s CPI has only gone down once in the last thirty years. However, it only goes up about three percent a year on average. So if your tax was $5,000 annually, they are now $2,500 and will take about 25 years to get back to $5,000.

Public Safety Exemption from Hard Cap: Bad!

Don’t get me wrong, Police, Fire, etc. are our most valuable assets and they need to be supported to the best of our ability. I just don’t like exemptions for hard caps; it prevents them from being “hard caps.” Public Safety is just a piece of the pie, and the CPI goes up three percent annually on average. That means the whole pie is getting larger every year and we can take care of our Public Safety sector with these increases.

State of Nebraska Funds K-12: Ugly!

I don’t like the idea of a statewide entity overseeing all our school districts. Every year our student spend goes up while test scores go down. Over the last ten years, the cost to e ducate a student went up 43 percent, from $11,364 to $16,214. Based on College Readiness Benchmarks, in 2013, the percentage of students that met the benchmark in English – 71, now it’s 50. Math was 46, now it’s 29. Reading was 48, now it’s 36. Science was 41, now it’s 30. The ugly truth is the current system has failed students, parents and taxpayers. Administrators, the plan isn’t working. It’s time for “Mom and Dad” to take over.

The overall plan is Ugly! Property owners are drowning in taxes and we need a lifeline. However, I’m no fan of a tax shift. So far, this appears to be a shift, dealing with the symptom and not solving the problem. We need to cut spending, PERIOD. Is this plan going to solve our problem? No. Is it a good “first step” toward solving our problem? Yes. The question is whether or not this plan is a first step in the journey or our final destination. If it’s “step one”, I’m onboard. If it’s our final destination, it’s certainly not my Utopic plain.