Key Points

Large amounts of state aid have replaced property taxes for the support of community colleges since 1997. The reasons for this include the passage of levy limits in 1996 (LB 1114) that lowered the levy authority of community colleges from 11.5 cents per one hundred dollars of taxable valuation plus an additional 1.8 cents for capital improvements to eight cents per one hundred dollars of taxable valuation in total. Further, LB 269 (1997) changed the authorization to seven cents for operations and 1 cent for capital improvements for 1998-99 and 1999-2000 and six cents for operations (1 cent for capital) thereafter. LB 269 also revised the entire aid to community colleges program to enable community colleges to operate with far less property taxes.

LB 881 increased state aid to community colleges for 1999-2000 by $30 million beyond what was necessary to fund the levy limit reductions and this appropriation was repeated for 2000-01. For 2001-02, this additional aid was stopped, meaning that in the year after the chart above ends, state aid decreased significantly.