Lawmakers work to meet deadlines, despite social distancing rules

Thursday, May 14, 2020
Sen. Dan Hughes spoke to the McCook Rotary Club on Tuesday via Zoom.
Shary Skiles/McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. -- Legislative work goes on with virtual meetings, individual and conference calls until lawmakers can meet in person, State Sen. Dan Hughes told the McCook Rotary Club via Zoom on Tuesday.

Sporting a brand new haircut thanks to loosened restrictions, the senator had been scheduled to speak at the Gazette’s Coffee With A Cop Tuesday morning, but because of social distancing guidelines, the meeting was moved online and facilitated by the Rotary.

Sen. Hughes said he was hopeful that the Legislature could get back together the middle of June, but it would depend on social distancing guidelines in place at the time. Members of the Legislature have 17 days when they can meet, and he said that those would be long days and late nights.

He said the Legislature has “some things that we need to take care of” before the end of the year. As an example, Sen. Hughes said there is a bill that renews the revolving fund used to mitigate costs of a leak in an underground storage tank. If that program expires, every filling station in the state would be required to have insurance in place to cover those leaks, which would be cost prohibitive for the stations. “Nobody wants to go down there [to the Legislature in Lincoln] prematurely, but there are some deadlines that we do need to handle.”

Sen. Hughes also said that the Legislature would need to go back and revisit the supplemental budget that was passed before they left in early March. “There are some things in that budget that we simply cannot afford now, and that’s very unfortunate.” He said revenue projections are uncertain at this point; income tax is pretty stable, but sales tax projections will be a wildcard. He said the budget that was passed contained a lot of “backfilling of places that we had cut previously and we put some money back in to get those programs going again. But stuff like that we simply can’t afford now.”

He said decisions need to be made about the approximately $1.25 billion coming from the federal government as part of the stimulus package. Considering that Nebraska has a $4 billion budget, those additional funds are substantial. “Where do we get the most bang for the buck? So, there’s going to be a lot of interesting discussions when you start doling out money, as there always is.” He said the Legislature will also need to address prisons when they re-convene.

There is still work being done on property tax relief, according to Hughes. “There are some senators who are working on that. I’m not part of that group, and that’s fine. I know the people who are on that and I trust their judgment to come up with some sort of framework that we can tackle when we do get back together.” He went on to say that he has never had a problem with how our schools are spending their money, but he does have a problem with where it’s coming from, stating that reliance on property tax has become too great. “We can’t cut our way out of it.”

Switching to his ag producer role, Sen. Hughes said he doesn’t see any real bright spots in agriculture. “I think there is some money coming from the federal government to help compensate a little bit. But any money you get from the government via the subsidy never makes up for us what the crop would be.”

He said there are serious problems in the supply chain, especially in the livestock industry. Those not closely associated with production agriculture don’t have a clear understanding of how the supply chain works and the length of time it takes to go from start to finished product.

“There’s a lot of education coming out of this. I mean, it’s a terrible situation, there’s no question. But there is some good coming out of this as people are becoming more aware of where their food comes from and how long it takes.” He said that most of the population took for granted the full shelves they saw in the grocery stores prior to the pandemic.

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