Responsible budgeting, K-12 funding the focus of two recent OpenSky columns

Responsible budgeting, K-12 funding the focus of two recent OpenSky columns

In a column that appeared Monday in the Omaha World-Herald, OpenSky Executive Director Renee Fry wrote that it’s troubling that some suggest lawmakers look to address our current budget shortfall strictly through cuts or that others feel enacting a Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) would alleviate future budget shortfalls. Recent history shows the dangers of budget cuts, Fry wrote, noting that the property tax and corrections issues that lawmakers now face stem in part from previous budget cuts. Fry also noted that Nebraska voters twice rejected TABOR because of the damage such a measure would cause the state.

Rather than addressing the shortfall strictly through cuts or enacting budgetary gimmicks, Fry said lawmakers can help close the budget hole by increasing their use of evidence-based budgeting to ensure our tax dollars are best used; reviewing tax breaks and incentives to ensure they are working for the state; and exploring expanding our sales tax to more services and collecting tax on online sales.

In a column that appeared in multiple papers around Nebraska, Fry wrote that urban and rural public school districts both have significant struggles with our K-12 funding formula.

In many rural districts, the formula has contributed to increased reliance on property taxes to fund schools and in more urban districts, unpredictable and unstable state aid create budgeting uncertainty that many property-rich rural districts don’t face. The solution, Fry wrote, is to conduct a study of school funding that leads to a formula that works for rural and urban school districts.