‘Government like a business’: Nebraska governor, cabinet tout efficiencies at roundtable meeting

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen offered the press a rare look inside a meeting of his cabinet on Monday, where he and agency heads touted state efficiencies and discussed the work ahead.”As long as I’m your governor, we will not be growing government,” Pillen said. “We’ll just keep working on running government like a business and make sure that we balance a budget every single day and every single year and make sure that Nebraskans are getting all their money there. We’re not storing it in pillowcases.”Pillen has made running “government like a business” a sticking point in his administration.”What does that mean?” Pillen said to his cabinet gathered on the second floor of the Capitol. “It’s three words, right? It’s about throughput. It’s about quality. And it’s about cost.”The legislative session that ended last week saw a fresh round of cuts to state agencies.”Just this session alone, we reduced $418 million in government spending,” Neil Sullivan, the state’s budget administrator, said.The leaders of each of those departments trumpeted triumphs, from educational efforts in the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services to the statewide response to Lexington’s Tyson plant powering down at the beginning of the year.”For the first time in the state’s history in Nebraska, every individual in our correctional system is served by a post-secondary institution,” NDCS Director Rob Jeffreys said.Multiple agencies collaborated to support the thousands of workers laid off in Lexington.”Now our priority is how do we find them, a career still in Nebraska, so we’ve launched some pilot transportation programs,” Katie Thurber, the commissioner of the Nebraska Department of Labor, said.Pillen said he’s confident the plant will come back online in the near future.”A couple of different possibilities,” Pillen said. “Too soon to talk about what that exactly would be.”CEO of the Department of Health and Human Services Steve Corsi discussed a major change to Medicaid in the state in May. Nebraska will be the first state in the country to roll out new Medicaid work requirements, impacting roughly 25,000 people.”These requirements will help Nebraskans achieve greater self-sufficiency, independence, financial stability, and foster personal growth,” Corsi said. “By doing this, we will help Nebraska’s small businesses in need of workers.”Pillen’s cabinet isn’t blinking in the face of a sprawling projected deficit, more than $600 million, next budget cycle.”Our state is an excellent financial condition,” Sullivan said. “We have over $1 billion on hand right now.”