Members of the Nebraska Agriculture Leaders Working Group hailed the proposal Monday as “the best bill from which to start.”

The bill would eventually guarantee that all Nebraska schools get at least 50 percent of their basic education funding from the state. Many rural schools currently receive no state equalization aid.

The bill includes some controversial proposals, including the elimination of sales tax exemptions for groceries.

Farm groups and the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Curt Friesen of Henderson, say the bill could change and they’re willing to consider other ideas.

Schools would have the option to place a poster in English and Spanish in an area of the building where it’s likely to be seen. Sen. John McCollister of Omaha presented the measure Monday to the Legislature’s Education Committee.

Schools could also post a link to the poster on their website. The bill would let the Nebraska Department of Education contract with an outside company or group to create the poster.

Department officials say they already have staff members who could create the poster with a minimal increase in expenses.

Gothenburg Improvement Co. President Nate Wyatt says he can’t disclose the purchase price. The deal is expected to close in late March. The development organization will approach the Gothenburg City Council to request city sales tax revenue to pay for the plant.

Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin announced in October 2017 that its Baldwin filtration products plant in Gothenburg would close and production would be transferred to the company’s plant in Kearney.

The first of more than 3,500 employees will begin moving into U.S. Strategic Command’s new Command and Control Facility in the spring, The Omaha World-Herald reported.

The 916,000-square-foot (85,000-square-meter) facility will replace StratCom’s current headquarters in the Gen. Curtis E. LeMay Building, which was constructed in 1957.

“The construction of the (Command and Control Facility) is historic,” said Vice Adm. David Kriete, StratCom’s deputy commander. “It marks the transition from the old to the new.”

The facility is “a national asset” designed to serve as the nation’s military command headquarters, even during a national emergency such as a nuclear war, Kriete said.

“We firmly believe a nuclear war should never be fought,” Kriete said. “But we want the good guys to know, and the bad guys to know; we’re really good at it.”

The project is in its second phase, which focuses on installing technology in the facility, Kriete said. The headquarters will have oversight of the nation’s space forces, missile defense, electronic warfare and nuclear arsenal.

Work on the project began in October 2012. The project has seen many setbacks, including flooding problems, persistent mold, a fire and a tornado.

“There’s been some minor glitches,” Kriete said. “Nothing that has substantially set us back.”

StratCom plans to move all staff into the new headquarters by the end of the year, he said.

“I’m very optimistic,” Kriete said. “We’re not going to move the command over until (the building) is mission-ready.”

The new proposal in the Legislature would add Nebraska to the growing number of states trying to clamp down on “neighborhood spoofing,” the practice of making distant calls appear as local numbers on caller IDs.

“Nebraskans are tired of receiving these calls,” said Sen. Steve Halloran, of Hastings. “It’s not respectful of people’s privacy. They don’t expect to be misled when they see a call coming in.”

Halloran introduced a bill last week that would ban callers from sending bogus caller ID information to phones “with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value.” Violators would go before the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which could impose a fine as large as $2,000 for each offense.

It appears to be a popular idea: Nearly one-third of the Legislature has signed on as a co-sponsor.

Halloran acknowledged the measure could raise costs for the telecommunications industry, which might get passed down to consumers, but said he still believe it’s a worthwhile idea. He said he deals with such calls constantly on his cellphone from numbers that appear to be from constituents.

A Nebraska Public Service Commission spokeswoman said agency officials have not yet reviewed the bill.

Industry officials said they fervently agree that phone spoofing is a growing problem they hope to address, but they aren’t sure a Nebraska state law would be effective.

“There’s nothing more infuriating than when you pick up a phone call expecting it to be somebody, and it’s somebody else,” said Eric Carstenson, president of the Nebraska Telecommunications Association. “But it’s a federal and international problem. It’s not a problem we think we can fix with Nebraska statutes.”

Carstenson noted that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has identified phone spoofing as his top consumer protection priority. Unwanted calls are by far the most common complaints the FCC receives, with more than 200,000 reported each year, according to the agency.

Nebraska state officials don’t track the number of complaints they receive, but phone spoofing has become far more common in recent years as technology advances, said Meghan Stoppel, chief of the Nebraska attorney general’s consumer protection division.

Stoppel said spoofing is commonly used in scams where callers pretend to be law enforcement officers or a tax auditor from the Internal Revenue Service. Both schemes are designed to pressure people into sending money quickly, and Stoppel said a variety of Nebraskans — from college students to the elderly — have fallen for them.

“It’s definitely a growing concern for us,” she said. “People can no longer trust the digits that are being displayed on their caller ID.”

At the same time, Stoppel said it’s important for governments not to block spoofing that serves a legitimate purpose. For example, she said companies frequently use spoofing so that calls appear to come from their main lines instead of an employee’s specific extension.

South Carolina passed an anti-spoofing law in 2018, and Kansas lawmakers will consider legislation this year. Florida and Mississippi have passed laws, but they were struck down amid industry lawsuits arguing that they regulated commerce outside the state’s borders, in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause.