Omaha, Neb. – After years of failed attempts, the Republicans in Nebraska managed using taxpayers dollars to pay tuition fees for private schools, despite the voters. cancellation The newly passed state law will fund the tuition fees for schools for state dollars.
Republican ruler Jim Bellin signed an executive order that chooses the state in my federal School choice The tax credit program included in President Donald Trump Tax and budget bill It passed in July.
“I do not choose that, I am carrying it in the state of Nebraska,” said Bellen, who announces this step on Monday at a Catholic School in Lincoln. It was joined by Republican representatives of the United States. Mike Floud and Adrian Smith, both of them from Nebraska, who supported the federal budget bill and the scholarship plan for private schools.
This procedure is noticeably similar to the state legislative council He passed in 2023 To allow companies and individuals to transfer millions of dollars in which they owe the state’s income taxes to non -profit organizations, which in turn grant these funds as a scholarship to private schools. The lawmakers emptied the procedure the following year after the opponents gathered much more signatures than required to demand voters to cancel it. After that, the Legislative Authority issued a new law financing scholarships for private schools directly from the state treasures.
The new federal law, chosen by Pelman, allows individual taxpayers to direct up to $ 1700 in federal income taxes due to scholarships for scholarships for use in the expenses of private K-12 qualified schools. But unlike Nebraska’s proposal for 2023, the federal procedure allows even high income families to receive public funds for private schools. The eligibility extends to families that earn up to 300 % of the average total income of the region, according to the Education Association in Nebraska – the largest teachers union in the state.
“Families who get more than $ 200,000 a year are eligible to receive a voucher funded by these tax credits,” said Tim Ruwais, President of NSEA.
The special step for school financing in Nebraska highlights the growing tension throughout the country between the will of the voters and their elected representatives. Earlier this year, the lawmakers in Nebraska were accused of sabotaging the will of people Reducing the pathological vacation paid by voters. In Missouri, legislators have taken steps to cancel the voter -based initiatives on abortion rights and paid satisfactory leave and imposed more requirements on polling initiative campaigns.
When submitted directly to the voters, efforts to expand the selection of schools greatly stumbled. Nebraska’s voter in November canceled The school selection law was issued earlier that year. A suggested constitutional amendment in Colorado would have proven “the right of schoolchildren” He was also defeated. Voters in Kentucky Refuse To enable public financing to attend private schools.
“The decision of the day taken by the governor of Billen undermines the clear will of the voters in Nebraska, who have just rejected the state levels in the polling fund,” Ruwais said.
Billin stated that opponents are wrong when they say that the scholarship plan for private schools funded from the public sector will take money from public schools, saying that the scale of choosing federal schools comes “without any cost of the state.”
“We have to have great public schools, and we have to have the great St. Teresa,” said Billin Monday. “Because of this legislation, both can win.”