LINCOLN- Gov. Jim Pillen criticized the petition drive seeking to repeal a $10 million scholarship program for private K-12 schools, saying it’s “absurd” in the scope of the total state budget and what the state spends on public education. For the second time in a year, Support Our Schools Nebraska launched a petition drive seeking to block efforts by the Legislature and Pillen to fund private school scholarships.

The public teacher-led group succeeded last year in gathering enough petitions to put a law providing $25 million in annual tax credits for private school scholarships up for repeal on the November ballot. In response to that, lawmakers this year directly appropriated $10 million annually for scholarships at private and faith-based schools, prompting the second petition drive.

Speaking in Omaha to the Greater Omaha Pachyderm Group, a regular lunch meeting held by local Republicans, Pillen said the scholarship funding is out of total state revenues of some $6.5 billion. “Public education, private education have to be together for our kids, it’s as simple as that,” Pillen said.

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