Farm Bureau considers taxes and valuations issue

Taxes and agriculture land valuations were the hot topic at last Thursday's annual meeting of the Kimball-Banner County Farm Bureau.

Keynote speaker Jay Farris, director of grassroots programs at Nebraska Farm Bureau, said the organization thought there was a perfect storm that would bring change to lower property taxes and valuations through legislation, but instead ended up disappointed.

"We thought we had that perfect storm scenario where we had a newly elected governor that heard property taxes were a problem on his campaign trail. We had a number of new senators in their first term who were traveling on the campaign trail and heard property taxes were a big, important issue. We had senators who had been there a while who knew property taxes were a big, important issue. And then we had a legislative session and we basically got nothing," Farris said.

Farris, who became involved with Farm Bureau as a volunteer board member in Merrick County in 1985, said the statewide group supported four pieces of legislation and only of them passed the last legislative session. One bill would have reduced agriculture land taxes from 75 percent to 65 percent of the valuation, another would have reduced it from 75 to 55 percent, and a third bill would have increased the amount of income tax that went to local schools without increasing the tax itself. All three of those measures did not get out of the revenue committee, Farris said.

A fourth bill, which did pass, put another $60 million into the property tax credit program.

"I wouldn't say that we walked away empty handed, but it wasn't enough," Farris said. "More needs to be done."

The Farm Bureau representative said part of the problem is that agricultural groups are not united. Even though there were four bills that the Nebraska Farm Bureau supported in the last session, he said there were more than five additional bills that the organization did not support. The lack of consensus among the groups hurt the legislation.

Farris said the state Farm Bureau is taking a different approach this year by asking members several questions in hopes of finding a solution. Questions include things such as what is a win on the property tax issue, what percentage of property tax needs to be cut, what can be done to offset a potential reduction and more. The options for potential solutions include working with the governor and legislature, suing the state, trying to change things by petition or a combination of those potential solutions.

Another problem is the lack of rural senators in the state, Farris said. Of the 49 state senators, there are only 21 that represent rural parts of the state. The others mostly come from the Omaha and Lincoln areas, and Farris said rural senators must work with those from more urban areas.

"In order to get something done, the political reality says we have to get some of the Lincoln and Omaha senators on our side," he said.

That is a challenge, he said, since many urban state senators look at farmers as wealthy and not wanting to pay their share of the taxes. Farris said that 3 percent of the population pays 30 percent of the taxes, and the system that skews against farmers and ranchers is currently not equitable.

"In agriculture, it takes lots of land to be able to be in operation," he said.

State senate candidate Steve Erdman of Bayard, who announced Monday that he would seek the District 47 seat, told those in attendance he would do what he says even if it is not popular. Erdman started farming in 1972, served on the school board for 15 years and has been a Morrill County Commissioner for more than 10 years. During his time as a commissioner, Erdman said the county has lowered its mill levy from 40 to 35.5 He added that he is pro life, pro second amendment, believes in cutting spending and believes family values are important.