By Senator Tom Brewer
During the short session of the 105th Legislature back in the Spring of 2018, I had a resolution drafted that I ended up never introducing. This is quite common. During the first ten days of the session, a lot of political reality can happen between submitting a drafting request and dropping a three-parted bill into the Clerk of the Legislature’s wicker basket. This is what it said:
“At the general election in November 2020, the following proposed amendment to the Constitution of Nebraska shall be submitted to the electors of the State of Nebraska for approval or rejection: To amend Article VII, section 6: VII-6
All lands owned by the state for educational purposes shall be sold on or before December 31, 2024, except when the sale of such lands would violate an existing lease contract, in which case the lands shall be sold immediately upon the expiration of such lease. Prior to January 1, 2025, at public auction under such conditions as the Legislature shall provide.”
The Board of Educational Lands and Funds (BELF) was established by the Nebraska Constitution to serve as trustee of the lands contributed to the state in 1867 by the federal government. As trustee of these lands, the Board is bound by fiduciary duty to its beneficiaries – the K-12 public school children of Nebraska. Upon admission to the Union in 1867, Nebraska received 2,797,520 acres of land for the “support of the common schools.” The original endowment represented nearly one eighteenth of the land in Nebraska—an area larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. i
The original grant represented Sections 16 and 36 in each Township “or lands in lieu thereof.” This “in lieu” provision was necessary because settlers living on these Sections (mainly in the eastern part of the State) before statehood were allowed to remain on the land they had settled. Thus, lands in Sections other than 16 and 36 were occasionally selected for the School Trust. ii
There was an interim study hearing of the Education Committee about this topic last month. The BELF contribute about 60 million a year to K-12 public education system in Nebraska. That comes to $161 per student, or a 2.86% return on investment. With the interest rates we see today, this is a lousy rate of return for the taxpayers. This has been going on for quite a while. I encourage senators in the 109th legislature to copy and paste this language into your own drafting request to the revisors. I should note that most of the school land in the eastern third of the state has already been sold. I find it ironic that most of the money raised from leasing school land comes from Western Nebraska. Most of this money however, is spent in Omaha and Lincoln.
At the end of the day, selling the land at public auction to the highest bidder, and then giving the proceeds of the sale to the Nebraska investment council will generate a lot greater return on investment. It is time to change our obsolete constitutional language and close this inefficient state agency.
Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.
i From the BELF website.
ii From the BELF website.