Nebraska
Nebraska Supreme Court rules state agencies can charge 'special' fees to review document requests • Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday that state agencies can impose a “special services charge” to review public records requests.
The 23-page ruling tends to affirm a $44,103 charge to a nonprofit news site, The Flatwater Free Press, to fulfill its request for public documents related to nitrate contamination of the state’s groundwater.
Flatwater maintained that the charge was excessive and not allowed by state public records law, an argument that Lancaster County District Judge Ryan Post agreed with.
‘Voluminous requests could be disruptive’
But the state appealed, and the Supreme Court ruled Friday that state public records laws recognized that “voluminous (records) requests could be disruptive to the public body.”
A “special service charge,” the court ruled, is allowed to cover the “existing salary or pay obligation” of state agencies’ employees after the first four hours of “searching, identifying, physically redacting, or copying.”
“However sympathetic we might be to (Flatwater’s) policy arguments,” the ruling stated, state law allows such fees to be charged.
Case ordered back to lower court
The court ordered the case back to Lancaster County District Court to determine whether the $44,103 fee conforms with the “special” fee allowance.
In a post Friday morning, Flatwater’s executive editor, Matthew Hansen, called the ruling “a blow to Nebraska’s public records law, a law written to protect media outlets like ours and Nebraskans like yourselves from the secrecy of those who hold power.”
“This clears the way for the State of Nebraska to charge us an ungodly amount of money to gain access to public records related to the state’s growing nitrate-in-groundwater problem,” Hansen wrote.
The case grew out of a public records request by Flatwater to the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy for emails and other documents containing the words “nitrate,” “fertilizer” and “nutrient.”
Series on nitrate contamination
The news site has produced a series of stories on nitrate contamination of the state’s groundwater — and the adverse health effects — based on public records it has been able to obtain.
Included was a story concerning contamination near hog barns operated by the family of Gov. Jim Pillen, a story the governor said should be discounted because the author was from “communist China” — a comment that sparked a firestorm of calls for an apology.
Other news media, including the Nebraska Examiner, also use information gleaned from record requests for reporting.
Initially, NDEE told Flatwater that fulfilling its records request would cost $2,000.
That led Flatwater to narrow its request, but also generated a new estimate from NDEE that it would require 927 hours of staff time at a cost of $44,103 to provide the records. Flatwater sued, calling the fee excessive and not allowed.
A key argument was whether a state agency, under the law, had a right to “review” records before they are released to determine if they are indeed public records and whether any portion needed to be redacted as not public.
The Supreme Court, in its ruling, said that such a “review” is allowed.
Hansen, the Flatwater editor, said he expects the fight over this issue will continue at the Nebraska Legislature, which has the power to change state law.
Overall, he called it “a blow to the 10 words” that are etched into the north face of the State Capitol: “The Salvation of the State is Watchfulness in the Citizen.”
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The 2026 MLB Draft started on Saturday, with 135 players selected. For Nebraska, two Husker pitchers got drafted, adding to the growing list of prospects to come from head coach Will Bolt’s tenure.
Ty Horn and Carson Jasa were selected in the third round of the draft, being picked only five spots apart. Horn was selected 94th overall by the Cincinnati Reds, and Jasa was selected 98th overall by the Chicago Cubs.
The duo are the eighth and ninth Huskers to be drafted in the third round and the seventh and eighth Husker pitchers under head coach Will Bolt to be drafted in the first 10 rounds.
The duo joins Spencer Schwellenbach (2nd, 2021), Cade Povich (3rd, 2021), Emmett Olson (4th, 2023), Jace Kaminska (10th, 2023), Brett Sears (7th, 2024) and Mason McConnaughey (4th, 2025). Horn is the fifth Husker to be selected by the Reds in the draft, and Jasa is the eighth Husker to be drafted by the Cubs.
Horn finished the season 3-3, with a 4.03 ERA and one save across 22 appearances. He started in 12 games. The Halstead, Kansas, native recorded 87 strikeouts in 82.2 innings and held opposing batters to a .241 average. Horn also posted eight-plus strikeouts in three games, including a career-high nine strikeouts against No. 18 Ole Miss in the Lincoln Regional.
Jasa is the sixth All-American under Bolt following a wildly successful 2026 campaign. He finished 10-2 on the season, becoming the 13th Husker in program history to reach the 10-win mark in a season and the first since 2007. The Thornton, Colorado, native also finished fifth in program history for strikeouts in a season after recording 117 strikeouts across 87.2 innings.
Jasa pitched two complete games, earned a 3.59 ERA, and held batters to a .210 average. He posted 10 starts with at least eight strikeouts, including a career-high 11 against Penn State and 10 against Indiana and Maine. His play helped him become the third Nebraska starting pitcher to earn first-team All-Big Ten honors since 2021.
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After going with power bats in with their two second-round picks, the Cubs went with big right-hander in Nebraska right-hander Carson Jasa in the third.
While Jasa is a tall, 6’7” right-hander with a fastball in the 95-96 mile per hour range, what the Cubs likely found attractive are his big spin rates. In fact, Jasa doesn’t throw his fastball very often and when he does, he has trouble locating it. Instead, Jasa relies on a upper-80s slider with some hard break. He also has a slow, upper-70s knee-bending curve with a 12-6 movement. Those two breaking pitches are Jasa’s primary weapons. He also has a fringy mid-80s changeup that he’ll need if he wants to get left-handed hitters out and remain as a starter. The Cubs have had some success teaching new changeups to Cade Horton and Ben Brown, and maybe they think they can go down a similar path with Jasa.
Jasa is a redshirt sophomore who missed all of the 2024 season with Tommy John surgery. He returned in 2025 and mostly pitched out of the bullpen, where he struggled. Jasa managed just 18.2 innings in 2025 and he walked 18 batters in that time, compared to 24 strikeouts. He posted a poor 8.68 ERA his redshirt freshman year.
But this past season, Jasa moved to the Cornhuskers starting rotation and found much more success. Jasa made 16 starts and went 10-2 with a 3.59 ERA. Over 87.2 innings, Jasa struck out 117 batters and cut his walk rate by over 50 percent with 47 walks. Still too high, but a big improvement over his first year back from Tommy John.
MLB Pipeline ranked Jasa as the 173rd best prospect in the draft and Baseball America ranked him slightly better at 158. Once again, Keith Law at The Athletic is the outlier, as he ranked Jasa higher at 93. Law acknowledged the big command and control issues that Jasa has and the considerable reliever risk that goes with it, but he also thought Jasa had some high potential if he can learn to throw more strikes and command the zone better.
In Jasa, the Cubs are getting a project for the pitch lab. With Jasa’s huge size, strong spin rates and above-average velocity, there is a lot there to work with. But the challenge is for him to develop a better feel for pitching and a better command of the zone. Otherwise, there is a lot of relief risk or worse on Jasa.
Here’s some video of Jasa pitching against Ohio State in May.
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Nebraska Athletics announced on Saturday that Nebraska redshirt sophomore Carson Jasa was selected in the third round of the Major League Baseball Draft by the Chicago Cubs.
Jasa is the eighth Husker to be selected by the Cubs in the draft.
Jasa was the No. 98 pick overall in the draft.
According to Nebraska Athletics, Jasa posted a 3.59 ERA with two complete games and 117 strikeouts across 87.2 innings while holding opponents to a .210 batting average.
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