Dear colleagues,
You are probably aware of ballot Initiative # 423 (also referred to as the spending lid), which will be on the November 7 general election ballot in Nebraska. According to our legal counsel, as public employees, we are prohibited from using public resources -- including a university e-mail account -- to advocate support or opposition to a ballot question. On the other hand, I am allowed to provide to you an objective analysis of the potential impact of Initiative 423, and to encourage you to actively express your views as private citizens and to vote.
Our budget office has analyzed the potential impact of Initiative 423 on the University of Nebraska. This information can be found at www.nebraska.edu/423. I urge you to review this and consider its implications. In short, the analysis demonstrates that the proposed spending lid could significantly impact the affordability of higher education, and the ability of the university to continue delivering existing teaching, research and outreach programs to our students and to the people of Nebraska. It could result in sharply higher tuition and reductions in important programs and services.
The budget cuts taken by the university in 2001-03 should give you a good indication of the potential impact of the spending lid. To put that in perspective, those budget cuts totaled about $50 million. The analysis by our budget office shows that if the lid had been put into effect 10 years ago, our appropriation from the state for 2007 would be $134 million less than it is. This amount is roughly equal to the entire share of the university's state appropriation allocated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln city campus for FY 2007 ($134.5 million).
There are, of course, many other implications of such a spending lid apart from its impact on higher education. There is debate -- and uncertainty, to be sure -- about its impact on property taxes, local services such as police and fire departments, K-12 education and more. You should consider the arguments regarding these important issues as well.
Between now and November 7, I encourage you to consider the proposed spending lid, which will become part of our state constitution if approved by the electorate, and to voice your opinion on this initiative through personal contacts, letters to the editor of your local newspaper and other opportunities in your part of the state. There is no issue on the ballot this year that is more important to the future of the University and the State of Nebraska.
Thank you for all you do for the University of Nebraska.
James B. Milliken
President, University of Nebraska
Comments
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That is just about the least objective objective analysis I have ever read.
JB is an attorney himself. Note strategic placement of word “could” here and there in the second para.
So who supports 423? And why?
Im all for it. The Colorado issues were brought about because of drought, 9/11’s effect on tourism, and the education lobby’s end run around the spending formula by wheedling at the pot. For all the boo hoo about schools suffering in CO, especially higher education, CSU is still cheaper than most state schools. Their public schools can’t seem to show where their test scores dropped due to lack of funds, so that tells me that maybe doing with what they had didnt really hurt anything. If I go to my wife and ask for money after Ive spent what we budget for each other in the month, I get grilled as to ‘why’. I don’t see why its such a problem that we hold our state legislators accountable as well. Nebraska voters have been shown time and again too gullible and sheepish to vote on anything that might do them some sensable good, so its time to throw away the ‘just vote them out’ mentality and use a different method.
I’m voting against the amendment.
The effect of the lid on the university would indeed be millions of dollars, roughly the budgetary equivalent of eliminating the Kearney campus.
Public schools in Colorado were struggling to heat their buildings. Perhaps the test scores didn’t significantly change, but the quality of education did.
Colorado dropped to the bottom of the national pile in terms of funding for education.
Perhaps equally disturbing is that $1 million has been spent promoting Initiative 423. Of that, only $7,850 has been from Nebraskans, the vast majority of the rest ($910,000) is from ” ...something called “America at Its Best,” $110,000 to Nabity’s organization from something called “Colorado at Its Best” and $45,000 to the Nabity committee from Americans for Limited Government, based in Evanston, Ill.”
-Omaha World-Herald 10/22/06.
The accounting method of inflation plus population growth to determine how much state spending can increase didn’t work in Colorado, a state with positive population growth. How will it work in Nebraska with negative population growth? What about in counties where there are fewer people than cattle?
This isn’t the right way to handle Nebraska’s money and I’m not going to let some out-of-state interest group influence me on this one.
I’m voting against the amendment.
Against- the way I see it, the difference will be made up somewhere. If the state can’t spend more, they’ll cut assistance to cities, so they’ll have to tax more. Either that, or services will be cut- most likely services I don’t want to see cut.
i will vote no- i don’t think this is the answer to stop overspending. i think that we should rely on our legislators to do that and hold them accountable when we feel they do not. i do not want to risk losing current services because of forced budget cuts. i also would not like to see k-12 education suffer as the state of child welfare in this state is pitiful enough.
that being said- i agree with mr. wilson thatthis article was not objective. it did not even pay any attention to what the benefits could be if the law did pass. to be objective, both sides should be given equal attention.
I’m voting YES. It’s time to remove the feeding tube and make the State government and other agencies/organizations survive on their own. The University system can find all sorts of money to buy property, buy out employee contracts add to the sports program and pay mutli million dollar wages to a football coach. Then they turn around and say that they have to cut student programs and raise tuition since they are broke. Seems that the university system has forgotten about the students and their purpose.
The state government has forgotten about the poor old tax payers just like the university system has forgotten about the students. We are their unlimited food source. Of course the threats of less police, fire, security, services, education are just a rubber stamp response to anything that will limit their unlimited source of funding. Make the State Government wake up and start living like we must, within a budget. Isn’t it funny how all the agencies that suck our tax money out of us are the biggest foe’s to this bill? It must work pretty darn good.
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