Governor vetoes small-schools bill

BY JoANNE YOUNG / Lincoln Journal Star
Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 07:10:25 pm CDT

After losing four rounds on a bill that would reorganize Class I schools in Nebraska, supporters of small schools feel they finally won the one that counts.

On Thursday, the last day of the 2007 session, the Legislature sustained Gov. Dave Heineman’s veto of LB658, a bill that would have allowed for creation of new Class I school districts through what some believed was a complicated process.

In his veto message, Heineman said the process set out in the bill to form and govern Class I districts was unfair.

Small district advocates viewed the bill as having so many obstacles to school creation that they were willing to sacrifice protection of their school buildings to work on alternative legislation for next year, he said.

Heineman said small school representatives assured him they would not file new lawsuits and would not continue to demand automatic restoration of the schools. They will work with lawmakers over the interim to reach a more reasonable resolution to the issue, he said.

“This opportunity presents us with a new beginning,” he said.

Lincoln Sen. Ron Raikes, chairman of the Education Committee and the bill’s sponsor, said he believed the governor made a deal with Class I’s United, leaving out the larger K-12 districts.

“It seems a peculiar way to me to set up a negotiation,” he said. “In a sense you’re saying, ‘I’m going to give up all my chips and then we’ll start the game.’”

By giving up LB653, the state returns to an existing law that offers Class I schools no protection. Their buildings could be sold or knocked down next week.

Raikes said if people wanted to rework the bill, they should do it with a law in place. The work on the Omaha-area learning community was done with a law in place that protected districts’ boundaries.

But John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said the governor made the right decision to veto the bill and the Legislature made the right decision to sustain the veto.

People directly impacted by LB126 were not at the negotiating table, as were people impacted by LB1024, the Omaha learning community bill, Hansen said. Last fall, voters statewide repealed LB126, a bill that dissolved elementary-only districts and required them to merge with nearby K-12 districts.

The Education Committee was given three bills that would have been a good starting point for negotiation, but killed all three, he said.

“All the good choices died in the Education Committee,” he said.

Education Committee members said they listened for several hours to what Class I supporters had to say at hearings on those bills.

Hansen said decisions about schools should be made at the local level.

“Those people say they want to be worked with, not dictated to,” he said. “They are unwilling to substitute their judgment for that of lawmakers in Lincoln. Local folks are in the best position to make those decisions.”

Now, he said, school administrators and school boards throughout the state understand the process is not over.

“They should act with a great deal of restraint until a remedy in the right direction is developed,” he said.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.