{"id":4790,"date":"2026-02-11T10:01:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/?p=4790"},"modified":"2026-03-02T10:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T16:06:24","slug":"109b-agency-78","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/2026\/02\/11\/109b-agency-78\/","title":{"rendered":"109B Agency 78"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>February 11, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sen. Robert Clements, Chairperson<br>Sen. Christy Armendariz, Vice Chairperson<br>Sen. Loren Lippincott<br>Sen. Jason Prokop<br>Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh<br>Sen. Ashlei Spivey<br>Sen. Myron Dorn<br>Sen. Paul Strommen<br>Sen. Robert Dover<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chairman Robert Clements and members of the Appropriations Committee:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Lincoln Public Schools (LPS) is concerned regarding the proposed cuts to Agency 78 or<br>Community Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>LPS partners closely with the Lincoln Police Department to support students and families.<br>Currently, LPS has 5 social workers that are partially funded with Community Based Aid<br>(CBA) This funding, directed to the County, supports the Lancaster County Truancy<br>Diversion Program. LPS receives $105,000 from CBA as part of braided funding between<br>CBA\/LPS to fund those social workers. We anticipate a 10%-20% cut to these funds.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Tipping Point program is a partnership between the Lincoln Police Department and<br>Lincoln Public Schools aimed at keeping at-risk youth out of gangs, and instead helping<br>them and their families connect to positive adults through school. The program is centered<br>on building positive relationships with the Tipping Point mentors, who support the students<br>and their families by connecting them to resources, and helping them recognize the value of<br>school. Tipping Point is designed to serve as proactive prevention, with students eligible to<br>be referred to the program as early as fourth grade, all the way through high school. Not<br>only does this help provide them with positive role models to support good choices, but it<br>also supports other positive outcomes, such as avoiding truancy, maintaining good grades,<br>engaging in positive behavior and connecting to school based activities and clubs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Tipping Point is a small, but intensive program that has created tangible, positive outcomes<br>for students who accept the referral and maintain their participation in the program. The<br>ultimate goal is to help students successfully graduate from high school and students who<br>have remained in the program through twelfth grade have all successfully graduated from<br>high school. We see this as adhering to the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a<br>pound of cure. The more that we can do up front, before kids get entangled in gang<br>affiliations, the better our chances are that they will experience positive outcomes in school,<br>and subsequently avoid future or recurring involvement with the criminal justice system.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It is important to remember that the true success of a prevention program is often found in<br>what doesn&#8217;t happen. When a student graduates instead of entering the justice system,<br>there is no data to record, but the positive impact on the community is immeasurable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The Lincoln Public Schools urges the Appropriations Committee to take these thoughts into consideration when deliberating your decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brad Jacobsen<br>Associate Superintendent of Civic Engagement<br>Lincoln Public Schools<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Testimony regarding the proposed cuts to Agency 78 or Community Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice by Associate Superintendent of Civic Engagement, Brad Jacobsen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[377,407,380],"class_list":["post-4790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-testimony","tag-109b","tag-agency-78","tag-brad-jacobsen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4790"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4796,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790\/revisions\/4796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/civic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}