BEATRICE – It’s the one thing Nebraska lawmakers are required to tackle this session….approval of a new two-year budget. That debate takes center stage this coming week.


The new state budget plan will be debated beginning Tuesday. Appropriations Committee member. Senator Myron Dorn, of Adams….says the debate will come on the heels of a recent Nebraska Forecasting Advisory Board report that lowered revenue projections by $190 million in the next biennium.


"We passed two bills on the floor this past week on final reading that affected the budget that we put to the floor. That brought in another twenty-some million dollars so that the $390 million deficit went down to a $160 million deficit. That's what we're trying to make up."


In order to address the deficit, state lawmakers will be considering spending reductions but also steps that could boost revenue. Dorn says among the examples…."Put the sales tax on pop and candy...that's going to bring in so much...there's also the cigarette tax, increasing that from 64, 68-cents a pack, basically double that. Those are very much....they were going to be discussed on the floor and I think everybody realizes that going forward, especially looking at the next two years and where revenue could be based on what the forecasting board says....the importance of having those." There’s been some discussion over the potential to delay income tax cuts previously approved.

There have been several years recently where lawmakers had extra revenue while budget debate was starting. Not this year, though. Dorn says changes made at the federal level also are becoming a factor.


"Elimination of programs, or grants or different things....that has also been part of the budget discussion, so I think that was part of the discussion and part of the Forecasting Board looking more at those....how they could affect us and how they could affect our revenue going forward. I do know that this time, it definitely was part of their reason for lowering the revenue we were expecting."


Tuesday will be the 73rd day of this year’s legislative session, which is scheduled to conclude June 9th.