The Nebraska Legislature went into special session in November to cut spending in response to declining revenues. The Governor’s proposal included cuts to state agencies and also targeted three critical programs.

The programs are:

• The Microenterprise Development Act funds loans, training and technical assistance for businesses with up to five employees.
• The Building Entrepreneurial Communities Act makes grants to small communities for business development, youth engagement and other development initiatives.
• The Value Added Agriculture Program makes grants to farmers and ranchers to develop new value added markets and products.

We worked with other organizations across our state to develop and deliver a sign-on letter to each state senator, urging them to protect the funding for these programs. The letter gained signatures from east to west, urban to rural, agricultural to manufacturing to high technology communities. All of them rely on entrepreneurship as a critical economic driver.

Funding was already cut by two-thirds for the Microenterprise Development Act and one-fourth for the Building Entrepreneurial Communities Act (BECA) in the regular session. While we all understand the need for fiscal restraint in these times, cutting these programs again, after they already suffered disproportionate cuts in the regular session, would only undermine economic recovery and further jeopardize the state budget.

Senator Haar (District 21) went to bat for these programs by introducing LB 16, which called for restoring their funding. He brought 17 other senators along with him.

In the end the Appropriations Committee’s bill rejected the governor’s proposal to cut the Value Added Agriculture Program. It maintained the cuts to the other two programs. The Legislature’s final bill concurred.

So, while the Microenterprise Development and the Building Entrepreneurial Communities Acts should have been spared, it is significant that Appropriations Committee members chose to reject the governor’s call for cutting the value added program. This is especially true when the overall bill maintained roughly 99 percent of his recommendations.

We will work to restore these funds as the budget recovers.

For more information: contact Traci Bruckner, tracib@cfra.org or 402.687.2103 x 1016.