LINCOLN- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Carol Blood is targeting much of her campaign message at traditionally Republican rural Nebraska, with a pledge to increase state school aid and tackle unfunded and underfunded state mandates that increase local government costs and property taxes.

"The answer is not a state cap on local government spending," the Bellevue senator said in a telephone interview.

"We need to fully fund the formula for state aid to schools," Blood said, and "reinstate state aid to local government."

As a former member of the Bellevue City Council, she said, she counted "over $10 million in unfunded state mandates" that increased the costs of local government in her community with an accompanying impact on property taxes.

"My experience at the local level gives me a different perspective," she said.

The answer to achieving property tax relief is "not to continue to kick the can down the road," she said.

Blood said the state needs to play a larger role in financing K-12 schools in order to reduce the outsized reliance on property taxes and create a more equitable tax system rather than "playing big daddy" by imposing mandates.

"State officials should not tell Nebraskans how to run their local government," she said. "That's not OK."

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