Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is an interesting time to be in Nebraska, and
given the news that popped yesterday about a couple of
ballot initiatives that will be attempted having to do with
property tax relief. And we're joined for a few minutes
this morning by a Nebraska State Board of Education member,
Kirk Penner, who's involved in the effort.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Kirk, good morning, Hey, good morning, Thanks for having me.
Just a quick disclaimer. I got to make sure I
let people know I'm speaking as an individual and not
speaking for the board.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Right, understand, but still, you care deeply about this issue,
and you were part of a part of the group
yesterday under the rotenda. The role leads out one of them,
the most interesting to me is the one that would basically,
as I understand it, cut property tax valuations in half.
(00:53):
That's pretty drastic. Is this basically an attention getter or
are you serious?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
No, this is legit. We've been working on this for
a long long time and been waiting for property tax
to be addressed, and it you know, they nickel and
diamond a little bit, but we need drastic property tax
reduction in the state. People are getting absolutely slaughtered with
evaluations that just came out and so that no, this
(01:22):
is not this is not something that we're just thrown
out there. This is legit, and we have a path
forward and we think we're going to succeed.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Well. The challenge, of course, Kevin, is that our kirk
rather is that it's it's gonna Because levies vary from
district to district. The question becomes, what keeps these school
boards and superintendent from jacking up levies if we cut
property taxes and valuations, what keeps them from going absolutely
(01:53):
nuts on levees? Is there say provision for that.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
There's a there's a limit already in states. But we
have not released everything that we've released, and I mentioned
this yesterday that we have a separate and ready to
file ballot initiative that will address the funding rebalance for schools. Nobody.
We just have not released it yet. It's at the
Secretary of State's office right now. Take about thirty days
(02:20):
and a lot of this will be addressed from that standpoint.
So we just have to tap the brakes. We came
out early here with the fifty percent reduction and capping
assessments at three percent, but we have a series of
stage ballot initiatives as I spoke about yesterday, one that
(02:40):
will address some of this funding for schools here in
the next thirty days.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
We won't that be so confusing to voters that it'll
turn them off.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It won't people love people vote their pocketbooks. They're going
to stick half their property tax in their pocket and
let's let's just be let's just be honest here. I
had a taxing authority knock on any of your listener's
doors and say, hey, can you afford your property taxes?
Never happens, No, never happens. So what they do is,
(03:11):
we are going to tax you more, so you need
you Gary and Kirk and Jim need to adjust your
personal budget while we take your money and spend more.
It's time to flip the script. It is our money
and they need to be better stewards of the tax dollars.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I think it's a slam dunk in terms of collecting signatures.
Now you need a lot of them. But I mean,
you know, as I do, you talk to anybody practically,
and I said, oh man, we got we got to
do something. We've got to have relief here because they're
not going to do it in the legislature. They're just not.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
We've seen now, I mean we've been we've been waiting.
We've been waiting. So they Yeah, it's about ninety thousand
for the it's a state statute for the fifty percent.
It's a constitutional measure on the three percent cap, which
will take about one hundred gosh, I think it's one
hundred hundred and ten thousand on that. I might beat
(04:10):
off a couple thousand on that number. But this is
the time, this is hot. People are just people are
very disappointed in what's going on, and they don't talk
to us. The accessor throws us thirty to forty percent
increase in our valuation, and they don't always reduce the
levee to match that. And that's the way it's supposed
(04:31):
to happen in the school district. Especially, you raise my valuation,
you need to drop my levee to match that. But
I will tell you in sixteen years at Aurora, where
I was a school board member, we spent less than
the previous year. One time. I'm talking spent, I'm not talking.
The game that schools play is say hey, we're going
(04:52):
to hold the levee at at eighty nine cents, and
we're just going to hold it there, but the valuation
goes on, goes up, so they continue, we all get
tax increases. It's got to stop, and now it's the
time to do it.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
So that's what that's what I meant the state law
basically to say the percentage of your valuation on which
you'll be taxed will be cut approximately in half.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
You'll be fifty percent. Yep, it will. And we've done
this in the past, and at one point, you know,
we weren't doing this, and it got it worked its
way up to one hundred percent for households. Now egg
Land is seventy five percent. That'll go to thirty seven
point five percent. That's a big number. That's a big number.
And our farmers property tax is one of their largest
(05:41):
input numbers that they have, so we know they'll be
on board.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Have you studied what happened in nineteen sixty six in.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
This date, I have not studied that.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Okay, Well, in nineteen sixty six, the people of Nebraska
said that's it, and they adopted a constitutional amendment that
placed on the ballot through initiation of a petition, that
abolished property tax as a state revenue source. It was
a mess, and the tax base for most local units
of government pretty much stayed in place. So the state
got out of the business of using property taxes to
(06:14):
pay bills, and it was because the legislature wouldn't do
anything about it, and our taxes were massively high. Suddenly
we had a state income tax and a lot of
other stuff. Have you guys looked at the dark side
of all of this if it happens, Not saying that it
shouldn't happen, but there is a downside, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
The way we have it figured out, and with the
upcoming ballot petitions, we don't see a dark side. We
don't see a dark side at all, because we have
this in our pocket here that everybody will see in
about thirty days for a lot of this. And I
know Eric and my colleagues Eric, Eric Underwood, Tom Nesbit
(06:52):
and Doug Faszgerald have looked into this deeply, and if
there was a dark side that we couldn't answer, we
wouldn't come forward with this because we don't want to
hurt Nebraska. We love our days.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I think I think it's I think it's pretty encouraging,
kind of exciting. Actually a lot more to come on it.
Kirk thanks for the overview this morning.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Appreciate it, you bet, Thank you guys.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Good Weekky Benner, State Board of ED Member, Here on
kfa b's morning News. Here they come
This is an interesting time to be in Nebraska, and
given the news that popped yesterday about a couple of
ballot initiatives that will be attempted having to do with
property tax relief. And we're joined for a few minutes
this morning by a Nebraska State Board of Education member,
Kirk Penner, who's involved in the effort.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Kirk, good morning, Hey, good morning, Thanks for having me.
Just a quick disclaimer. I got to make sure I
let people know I'm speaking as an individual and not
speaking for the board.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Right, understand, but still, you care deeply about this issue,
and you were part of a part of the group
yesterday under the rotenda. The role leads out one of them,
the most interesting to me is the one that would basically,
as I understand it, cut property tax valuations in half.
(00:53):
That's pretty drastic. Is this basically an attention getter or
are you serious?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
No, this is legit. We've been working on this for
a long long time and been waiting for property tax
to be addressed, and it you know, they nickel and
diamond a little bit, but we need drastic property tax
reduction in the state. People are getting absolutely slaughtered with
evaluations that just came out and so that no, this
(01:22):
is not this is not something that we're just thrown
out there. This is legit, and we have a path
forward and we think we're going to succeed.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Well. The challenge, of course, Kevin, is that our kirk
rather is that it's it's gonna Because levies vary from
district to district. The question becomes, what keeps these school
boards and superintendent from jacking up levies if we cut
property taxes and valuations, what keeps them from going absolutely
(01:53):
nuts on levees? Is there say provision for that.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
There's a there's a limit already in states. But we
have not released everything that we've released, and I mentioned
this yesterday that we have a separate and ready to
file ballot initiative that will address the funding rebalance for schools. Nobody.
We just have not released it yet. It's at the
Secretary of State's office right now. Take about thirty days
(02:20):
and a lot of this will be addressed from that standpoint.
So we just have to tap the brakes. We came
out early here with the fifty percent reduction and capping
assessments at three percent, but we have a series of
stage ballot initiatives as I spoke about yesterday, one that
(02:40):
will address some of this funding for schools here in
the next thirty days.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
We won't that be so confusing to voters that it'll
turn them off.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It won't people love people vote their pocketbooks. They're going
to stick half their property tax in their pocket and
let's let's just be let's just be honest here. I
had a taxing authority knock on any of your listener's
doors and say, hey, can you afford your property taxes?
Never happens, No, never happens. So what they do is,
(03:11):
we are going to tax you more, so you need
you Gary and Kirk and Jim need to adjust your
personal budget while we take your money and spend more.
It's time to flip the script. It is our money
and they need to be better stewards of the tax dollars.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I think it's a slam dunk in terms of collecting signatures.
Now you need a lot of them. But I mean,
you know, as I do, you talk to anybody practically,
and I said, oh man, we got we got to
do something. We've got to have relief here because they're
not going to do it in the legislature. They're just not.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
We've seen now, I mean we've been we've been waiting.
We've been waiting. So they Yeah, it's about ninety thousand
for the it's a state statute for the fifty percent.
It's a constitutional measure on the three percent cap, which
will take about one hundred gosh, I think it's one
hundred hundred and ten thousand on that. I might beat
(04:10):
off a couple thousand on that number. But this is
the time, this is hot. People are just people are
very disappointed in what's going on, and they don't talk
to us. The accessor throws us thirty to forty percent
increase in our valuation, and they don't always reduce the
levee to match that. And that's the way it's supposed
(04:31):
to happen in the school district. Especially, you raise my valuation,
you need to drop my levee to match that. But
I will tell you in sixteen years at Aurora, where
I was a school board member, we spent less than
the previous year. One time. I'm talking spent, I'm not talking.
The game that schools play is say hey, we're going
(04:52):
to hold the levee at at eighty nine cents, and
we're just going to hold it there, but the valuation
goes on, goes up, so they continue, we all get
tax increases. It's got to stop, and now it's the
time to do it.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
So that's what that's what I meant the state law
basically to say the percentage of your valuation on which
you'll be taxed will be cut approximately in half.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
You'll be fifty percent. Yep, it will. And we've done
this in the past, and at one point, you know,
we weren't doing this, and it got it worked its
way up to one hundred percent for households. Now egg
Land is seventy five percent. That'll go to thirty seven
point five percent. That's a big number. That's a big number.
And our farmers property tax is one of their largest
(05:41):
input numbers that they have, so we know they'll be
on board.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Have you studied what happened in nineteen sixty six in.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
This date, I have not studied that.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Okay, Well, in nineteen sixty six, the people of Nebraska
said that's it, and they adopted a constitutional amendment that
placed on the ballot through initiation of a petition, that
abolished property tax as a state revenue source. It was
a mess, and the tax base for most local units
of government pretty much stayed in place. So the state
got out of the business of using property taxes to
(06:14):
pay bills, and it was because the legislature wouldn't do
anything about it, and our taxes were massively high. Suddenly
we had a state income tax and a lot of
other stuff. Have you guys looked at the dark side
of all of this if it happens, Not saying that it
shouldn't happen, but there is a downside, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
The way we have it figured out, and with the
upcoming ballot petitions, we don't see a dark side. We
don't see a dark side at all, because we have
this in our pocket here that everybody will see in
about thirty days for a lot of this. And I
know Eric and my colleagues Eric, Eric Underwood, Tom Nesbit
(06:52):
and Doug Faszgerald have looked into this deeply, and if
there was a dark side that we couldn't answer, we
wouldn't come forward with this because we don't want to
hurt Nebraska. We love our days.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I think I think it's I think it's pretty encouraging,
kind of exciting. Actually a lot more to come on it.
Kirk thanks for the overview this morning.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Appreciate it, you bet, Thank you guys.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Good Weekky Benner, State Board of ED Member, Here on
kfa b's morning News. Here they come
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