Gubernatorial challenger says he’ll reform tax system
Spence says total
redesign would be
first agenda item
By Jeffrey Robb
Senior Editor
Republican candidate for governor
Gene Spence continued his guberna
torial campaign with a rally Thursday
evening in the Haymarket.
Spence criticized Gov. Ben Nelson
on taxes, on crime, on the economy
and even for living in Omaha instead
of the governor’s mansion.
Equity
Continued from Page 1
“I see a lot of positive interac
tion between females and males in
class,” Thorp said. “Any casual
observer would not get the idea of
a chilly climate.”
On the syllabus for his classes,
he said, there is a statement that
says CBA will not “tolerate sexual
or racial harassment in the class
room.”
He said about two-thirds of pro
fessors at CBA used the statement
on their syllabuses.
“We do have some problems,”
Thorp said, “but the AAUP study
greatly overplays the situation.”
Regents
Continued from Page 1
tion of change in the college as “alarm
ing and discouraging."
The report includes criticism of
evaluation procedures, salary decisions
and appointment to graduate or tenure
positions.
In other business, the board will be
asked to approve a motion to add the
Nebraska College of Technical Agri
culture in Curtis as a campus of the
university.
Spence also announced his plan for
changing Nebraska’s state govern
ment, calling it “Forward Nebraska.”
Spence said the plan would do three
things: redesign state government,
redesign the state tax structure and
maximize the power of the state’s
agricultural and economic base.
The state tax structure is the most
immediate of the problems, Spence
said. The tax system has been in a
mess for a long time, Spence said, and
is incomprehensible and universally
unfair.
“As governor, the first item on my
agenda will be the total redesign of the
tax system in Nebraska,” Spence said,
“starting with no preconceived no
tions about what it should be.”
For 100 years, the state has tried to
patch together a solution, Spence said,
but he would deal with the entire
system instead of tinkering with its
parts.
With the Nelson administration,
Spence said, the mess has continued.
“Governor Nelson and the tax com
missioner have made it almost impos
sible for people to prepare their tax
returns because 910,000 tax forms are
wrong,” he said.
Because of inefficiency in the tax
system throughout Nelson’s term,
Spence said, people paid higher taxes,
and schools didn’t receive their full
endowments.
Another part of Spence’s plan
would take care of inefficiency. Spence
said if elected, he eventually would
redesign state government so that it
provided its services better and more
cheaply. Spence said he wouldn’t
throw money into current programs or
create new ones.
“I give you my word, and I keep my
word, that I will not hesitate to make
these changes,” Spence said. “And I
will make the difficult decisions that
truly will take Nebraska forward.”
Spence also said crime must be
dealt with today. Nelson has failed to
deal effectively with the problem, he
said.
Law enforcement is making the
arrests, and the prosecutors are get
ting the convictions, Spence said, but
after that the system breaks down.
Thorp said the Gender and Mi
nority Issues Committee had been
looking for ways to address gender
issues at CBA.
“The AAUP report sounds like
we arcn’ t doing anything,” he said,
“but we feel we are making
progress.”
For example, he said, five of the
last six faculty members hired have
been female.
And s ince more and more wom
en will be hired as professors and
recruited as students in CBA, he
said, it is important to work out the
gender differences among mem
ers of the college.
“We’re trying to get male col
leagues to sit up and take notice,”
Thorp said.
By Paula Lavigne
Senior Reporter
A state legislative bill that initially
promoted pretrial diversions for first
time offenders was altered during de
bate Thursday to instead increase sal
aries for probation officers.
With the new provisions established
in LB779, the salaries of probation
officers would be increased to equal
those of payroll officers.
The original provisions of LB779,
involving pretrial diversions for those
charged with driving while intoxicat
ed, were scrapped because of a lack of
votes, Sen. John Lindsay of Omaha
said. The bill in its revised form moved
on to final reading Thursday.
Lindsay, who sponsored the bill,
said the probation officer issue had
been a concern of the Judiciary Com
mittee for the past few years.
“Probation officers are horribly paid
right now,” Lindsay said. “If proba
tion can be done correctly, it can be
much more cost-effective than pris
ons.”
Lindsay said the current annual
salary for probation officers was
$ 19,000. Each ofTicer supervises about
140 cases a year, he said. The yearly
cost to maintain one prisoner can
amount to $20,000.
“For the same cost of keeping a
person in prison, we can provide one
on-one supervision,” he said. This
individual attention would lead to
better supervision and success with
probation.
“We could have less people repeat
ing criminal behavior and it would
cost less,” he said.
Lindsay said studies proved offend
ers were better controlled by experi
enced probation officers.
“This is the logical perspective,”
Lindsay said.
More individual attention by pro
bation officers to offenders would de
ter future crimes, he said.
By increasing salaries, Lindsay said
Nebraska would be able to retain more
of its qualified officers. Omaha pro
vides a training ground for probation
officers, many of whom are going to
Iowa or federal prisons instead of
Nebraska, he said.
Prior to 1986, the college was part
of the NU system and was under con
trol of the regents, but it was in danger
of closing. The Legislature and then
Gov. Kay Orr decided to make it a
separate college to keep it going.
After 1986, it was not part of the
university system but under control of
the Board of Regents.
The board also will be asked to
approve an amendment to incoming
President Dennis Smith’s contract.
The proposal would allow for Smith to
retire before 10 years of university
service.
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Spence said Nelson should not let
convicts free just because they kept out
of trouble while in jail. Spence also
blamed Nelson’s appointed parole
board for putting criminals back on
the street.
“As governor, I will eliminate the
pol itically-appointed parole board sys
tem as it exists today,” Spence said.
“As governor, I will accept responsi
bility for making parole decisions.”
Nelson came out against this idea,
Spence said, saying the governor
doesn’t have time to do that job him
self. Spence said he would make time
by living in the governor’s mansion
instead of in Omaha. Each day, Spence
said, he would save two hours of travel
time and could devote that to his work.
Bill would raise probation officers’ pay
Original pretrial diversions bill lacked support in Legislature
-44
We’re preventing
crime instead of
punishing. If there’s
no crime, there’s no
victim.
— Lindsay
state senator
-11
“What happens is we spend more
to train these officers who end up
going to another state," he said.
He said federal salaries started at
50 percent higher than those in Ne
braska.
“We could retain some good, expe
rienced officers,” Lindsay said. “As
time goes on, we will have more offic
ers who will be able to get to know the
offenders, know the families and know
what kind of support services are nec
essary.
“We’re preventing crime instead
of punishing,” he said. “If there’s no
crime, there’s no victim.”
