LINCOLN — There was always going to be a price to pay for property tax relief and the dollars amount starting going up the second lawmakers returned to Lincoln, and many Senators aren’t happy about how those dollars are being spent.
“To the citizens who are paying the bill for this special session, which is running up the tab each and every day, the legislature goes on. With no plan, no end in sight, and no thoughtfulness in our deliberations,” said Senator Danielle Conrad.
The senators themselves aren’t making any extra money for this session but all of the legislative aids, pages, clerks and revisors who keep the body running smoothly are getting paid for their time.
And that cost has come out to a total of $126,860 dollars, an average of over $9000 dollars a day for a two week session.
But when it came time to debate the bill that would pay those costs many senators instead turned their attention to how the session has been conducted so far.
Extremely short notice for hearings, executive sessions without committee members present and constantly changing schedules were just a few of the bones picked on the floor Wednesday.
“Whether you support what is attempting to be accomplished here or not, this entire process has been frustrating and infuriating,” said Senator Machaela Cavanaugh.
The budget for the session, in its current form, tells us more than just how much we are paying to have legislators try to lower property taxes.
Senator Lou Ann Linehan has made comments suggesting lawmakers could be in Lincoln until Labor Day if it took that long to pass a plan, but the money the unicameral is looking to set aside wouldn’t cover a session that long.
But at least a few members of the body believe that two weeks won’t be enough time to fix property taxes.
“We have not had time to deliberate this and we have had good ideas going back generations of senators. Property taxes have been a problem since statehood. So I don’t know why we (said super sarcastically) Fullbright Scholars down here think we are gonna solve this in a week or two,” said Senator Megan Hunt
