NE lawmakers propose tax-funded school choice bill

Nebraska lawmakers are on track to pass a bill that would circumvent an upcoming ballot initiative in which voters could repeal a new state law that funds private school tuition with taxpayer money.

The bill from Omaha Sen. Lou Ann Linehan, the author of last year's Opportunity Scholarships Act, advanced late Wednesday to a final round of debate, just a day after advancing from the first round of debate. It would change the way the private school scholarships, enacted last year, are funded.

The law passed last year by Nebraska's officially nonpartisan Legislature did not appropriate taxpayer dollars directly to private school tuition. Instead, it allowed businesses and individuals to donate as much as $100,000 per year of their owed state income tax to nonprofit organizations that award private school tuition scholarships. Estates and trusts could donate as much as $1 million a year. That dollar-for-dollar tax credit is money that would otherwise go into the state’s general revenue fund.