Two bills relating to the learning community (ok “learning communities” but we all know there’s only one) are being discussed in a Revenue Committee hearing this Thursday.
One is Sen. Scott Price’s LB418, which I have blogged about before here. I encourage everyone who cares about tax fairness in Douglas and Sarpy counties to attend the hearing and support this bill or at least contct your senator and register your support.
LB521, introduced by Sen. Dave Pankonin of District 2 (Louisville) authorizes the Learning Community to levy another quarter cent of property tax per 100,000 valuation, on top of the levies they are already authorised, for “general fund” purposes. It also changes the current reduction in state aid for school districts in the learning community from 50% to 10%. It appears to me that the net effect of this is that the learning community school districts will get more money from the state at large (although still not as much as before the learning community was thrust upon us) while Douglas and Sarpy property owners will have their property taxes hiked for the learning community’s “general fund” purposes. There’s no statement of intent posted for this bill so I’m not quite sure what Sen. Pankonin is trying to achieve here.
Hearing details are: Thursday, March 26th at 1:30pm in room 1524.
