LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) — State senators Wednesday worked with the state and city chambers of commerce to hit on a couple of their upcoming legislative priorities now that the next session is only 77 days away.

With Nebraska’s first quarter GDP down more than 6% this year and a budget shortfall in the millions looming over their shoulder, those days will lead to what one senator called “a lot of difficult decisions.”

The handful of state senators reiterated similar policy priorities for the next session: housing, childcare cost and availability and tax challenges.

Sen. George Dungan addressed the elephant in the room, saying the budget will take up “a lot of oxygen of this short session.”

Nebraska is facing a budget deficit of $95 million.

Senators expressed that the session will be about more than just funding affordable housing projects, addressing zoning laws and reforming educational tax policy.

“We’re looking at home insurance premiums. I talked to my peers in this state, and we’re at the point now where we are paying more in insurance premiums and property taxes than we are in principal interest,” Sen. Beau Ballard said.

Sen. Carolyn Bosn said public safety and social media protections for children are high on her list.

“There’s some legislation that needs to be modified, accommodated,” Bosn said. “I know that individuals who oppose that legislation had good reasons for doing it, but wanting to work with them in ways that we can still provide social media protections for kids, keeping kids safe while not stepping on the toes of some of those businesses.”

Sen. Jason Prokop plans to continue working on LB304, a childcare subsidy bill.

Dungan, Conrad and Prokop also hit on the need to support Nebraska’s higher education landscape.

“It is critical, critical, critical that we appropriately fund and support the University of Nebraska,” Prokop said. “It is an economic engine for our state. It is educating our young people. These are the future business leaders. We’ve got to support the university in every way that we can.”

Sen. Eliot Bostar added he’d like to address growing the state but that there is opposition from those who he believes fear change.

“There are a lot of people out there and a lot of interests out there that fundamentally do not want the state to grow,” Bostar said. “And that is something we run into specifically often as we’re trying to pursue policies that I think folks would instinctively identify as common sense.”

Sen. Danielle Conrad — who is entering her 12th year at the Unicameral — highlighted how the landscape has changed but their goals haven’t.

“But now more than ever, we need an experienced and independent, robust checks and balances in the people’s house, in the legislature, to make sure that personal liberty and economic prosperity is guarded against government overreach from the other branches of government and the federal government,” Conrad said.

The Unicameral is set to gavel in for the 2026 session on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.

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LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Currently, more than 300 students are enrolled as students in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Come next year, should $27.5 million of proposed budget cuts for the school’s next fiscal year be approved, it is one of six departments that will no longer exist.

“We offer the only PHD in higher education in the state of Nebraska,” Corey Rumann, an Assistant Professor of Practice in the department, said. “Eliminating that would be a huge, huge void.”

Statistics, Community and Regional Planning, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Landscape Architecture and Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion design are the five other departments now facing potential elimination.

Professors and students from each of those departments, as well as other university departments, spoke out against the proposed cuts at a public town hall in Lincoln on Tuesday night.

“It’s important for people to be able to chart their own course,” Abigail Cochran, a professor in the Department of Community and Regional planning, said. “I don’t think we’re really going to be able to do that with the elimination of our program and these other vital programs.”

For many educators in these departments, their concerns are for the students, both current and future.

“I’m not worried about me,” Susan Vanderplas, a professor in the Department of Statistics at UNL, said. “I’m worried about what this says about the state and the opportunities we’re offering the children of this state.”

For some students, a portion of their futures in now on the chopping block.

“You’ve committed to this university,” Robert Szot, a graduate student studying meteorology in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said. “To have that pulled out from under you means you have to change the entire way of what you’re doing on a dimes notice.”

The university’s Board of Regents is set to vote on the proposed plan on Dec. 5.

The UNL chapter of the American Association of University Professors will be holding a “Stop The Cuts” rally and petition drive outside the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s union on Saturday, Oct. 25 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

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