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Texas and Georgia are battling for recruiting supremacy before duking it out for a Southeastern Conference title. Alabama, which also appears to be headed to the playoffs, is right behind them. The two Atlanta-bound and presumably playoff-bound SEC powers are leading the way in recruiting league-wide and nationally during the early signing period that started Wednesday. They'll meet Saturday in the SEC championship game in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They're currently No. 1 (Texas) and No. 2 (Georgia) nationally, but the SEC holds a sweep of the top three with the Crimson Tide ranked third in Kalen DeBoer's first full recruiting cycle. The league holds eight of the top 11 spots. The final rankings are pending the decision of the nation's top uncommitted prospect, defensive tackle Justus Terry, who is expected to choose among three SEC schools: Georgia, Texas and Auburn. The Longhorns landed four five-star prospects, per the 247Sports composite rankings of recruiting sites. They also picked up No. 1-ranked athlete Michael Terry III on signing day when he chose Texas over Nebraska. Steve Sarkisian's Longhorns class is led by five-star safety Jonah Williams of Galveston, Texas, the nation’s No. 8 overall prospect, according to the composite rankings. They signed five-star wide receivers Kaliq Lockett and Jaime Ffrench, along with edge rusher Lance Jackson. Only Florida’s Ffrench was from out of state. Georgia had pledges from five five-star prospects entering signing day, led by No. 3 overall recruit defensive lineman Elijah Griffin, edge rusher Isaiah Gibson and linebacker Zayden Walker. Alabama got a potential successor to quarterback Jalen Milroe. Keelon Russell of Duncanville, Texas, is rated as the No. 2 quarterback and overall prospect per the composite rankings. Auburn coach Hugh Freeze has been touting his recruiting success frequently as building a solid foundation amid losing records in his first two seasons. The Tigers are currently at No. 6 and landed a much-needed quarterback in five-star Deuce Knight from Lucedale, Mississippi. LSU had the eighth-ranked class, a group led by five-star prospects in cornerback DJ Pickett, running back Harlem Berry and offensive lineman Solomon Thomas. Texas A&M stands at No. 9 after late flips in five-star signees in wide receiver Jerome Myles (from USC) and offensive tackle Lamont Rogers (Missouri). The Aggies are followed in order by LSU, Tennessee and Florida. The Volunteers were still awaiting the letter-of-intent from top-five prospect offensive tackle David Sanders Jr., who has been committed since August but is reportedly considering Ohio State. The Gators' class was highlighted by five-star receiver Vernell Brown III. Ole Miss wide receiver signee Caleb Cunningham is too highly rated to be truly under the radar for most programs. But Lane Kiffin has built the Rebels into an SEC contender largely with transfers, not blue-chip high school recruits. Cunningham, who de-committed from Alabama on Nov. 13, is rated as the No. 2 receiver and 18th-best player in the class. Ole Miss is looking for a replacement to star receiver Tre Harris. Alabama's Russell was the highest-rated recruit and plays at the most prized position. The 6-foot-3, 175-pounder led Duncanville High School to state championships in 2022 and 2023 and was MVP of the Elite 11 quarterback competition this year. Alabama returns Ty Simpson and Austin Mack at quarterback, so there may not be a pressing need for an immediate impact. Myles was a big addition to the Aggies at a position of need. The nation's No. 5 receiver and 23rd-rated recruit had decommitted from USC after visiting College Station last weekend. Texas A&M coach Mike Elko's team is down to five scholarship receivers entering the postseason. Billy Napier and Florida flipped four-star safety Lagonza Hayward from rival Tennessee. Hayward ranks as the No. 9 safety in the country and had decommitted from the Vols on Sunday. Get poll alerts and updates on AP Top 25 football throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
School property tax debates past, present and yet to come will once again haunt the state’s elected officials in the new 109th Legislature. One of western Nebraska’s five state senators will push for millions of dollars in extra tax relief after the Unicameral’s summer special session “frontloaded” a 30% K-12 school income tax credit onto December’s 2024-25 property tax bills. Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering cites a State Capitol argument whether doing so deprived property owners of their 2023-24 income tax credit. Gov. Jim Pillen, who failed to win enough support for sweeping tax changes in the extra session, meanwhile renewed his efforts with a “2024 School Property Tax Report” released Nov. 8. It included data on 2024-25 K-12 districts’ aid and property tax requests. Lowering the former typically boosts the latter, it said. Senators need to seek “predictability of aid given to school districts,” it added, to “allow Nebraska to have sustained property tax reductions for the first time in its history.” Star-Herald analyses found mixed pictures on both questions for western Nebraska property owners, at least regarding the 2024-25 tax bills they’ll get in the mail next month. A formula provided by state budget officials shows the K-12 income tax credits — which thousands of Nebraskans never claimed — will refund 30% of all property owners’ eligible 2023-24 school taxes as a second direct discount on 2024-25 property tax bills. But it won’t equal a 30% break on their latest school taxes for the three Scotts Bluff County agricultural operations and two of the three Scottsbluff-Gering area homes the paper tracks each “budget season.” Why? It’s mostly because LB 34’s K-12 school tax credit will continue to run one year behind, as the income tax credit did from its debut in 2020. It also excludes the schools’ portions of the older but smaller 2023-24 Property Tax Credit Fund break — also taken off December tax bills — and the homestead exemptions some homeowners receive, said Lee Will, director of the state Department of Administrative Services. Those factors yield effective 2024-25 school tax discounts from 24.8% to 27.8% for a ranch southeast of Lyman and farms with mixed soil types northwest of Mitchell and southwest and southeast of Melbeta. They’ll be worth 27.9% for the Star-Herald’s Home 1, located in Scottsbluff’s Westmoor neighborhood, and 28.2% for Home 2 in Gering’s Legion Park neighborhood. The picture is more complicated for Home 3 in east Terrytown, which has received a full homestead exemption since 2019. The Nebraska Taxes Online website won’t report parcels’ 2024 homestead exemption status until final tax bills are sent out. If the Terrytown home’s full exemption was renewed for 2024, that most likely will again cancel out the home’s tax bill. But if not, it won’t get the new K-12 tax credit this year — because its owners didn’t have to pay taxes in 2023. A trio of term-limited lawmakers, including Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard, contend that property owners are being shortchanged by the school income tax credit’s transition to a direct discount. LB 34 dealt them a “missing year” of tax relief, the lawmakers argued, if they paid their 2023 school taxes during 2024. Hardin said he’ll introduce a bill to make up the perceived shortfall. “We took the 2023 monies and flipped them end for end and said we’ll get them in 2024,” he said. But LB 34 didn’t deprive any property owner of a 2023 school tax break, countered North Platte Sen. Mike Jacobson. Instead of claiming it when they do 2024 income taxes after New Year’s, he said, they’ll get it before Christmas off the top of their 2024 property taxes. In fact, Jacobson added, Nebraskans who paid their 2023 property taxes last December can get both the 2023 K-12 income tax credit — if they claim it — and the direct 2023 discount next month. “We told people it’s not that anybody lost out,” said Jacobson, who hopes to join the Revenue Committee in 2025. “It’s that some people double-dipped.” Even if there were a “missing year,” he said, it’s highly unlikely the Legislature can find $560.7 million — the amount allocated for K-12 income tax credits for 2023 — on top of the $750 million for the new direct discount. The Legislature’s Tax Rate Review Committee told senators Wednesday that the state’s budget balance by 2026-27 could be more than $432 million below its legal minimum reserve if lawmakers make no changes. “If anybody thinks a bill’s going to pass the Legislature that will cost $500 million to ‘make people whole,’ that’s not going to happen,” Jacobson said. The same cloud hangs over Pillen’s renewed call for even higher property tax relief, acknowledged as Nebraska’s largest single budget item in the governor’s Nov. 8 report. It lauded the 244 school districts for holding statewide growth in their 2024-25 property tax requests to 2.8% — the slowest pace this century. Senators slapped a basic 3% lid last year on how much K-12 districts can charge. But four fast-growing metro-area districts — Lincoln, Millard, Papillion-La Vista and Gretna — accounted for 82% of the $76.1 million in school property tax growth over 2023-24, the report said. Those four also lost a combined $56.3 million in state aid. The aid formula founded in 1990 “has become a large reason as to why some local school districts continue to need to increase local taxes,” the report said. The correlation between school-aid cuts and higher tax requests didn’t hold up universally, according to the Star-Herald’s analysis of Pillen’s report. Four of the Panhandle’s 20 districts — Gering, Morrill, Bayard and South Platte — both absorbed state-aid cuts and raised their tax requests by more than the 2.8% statewide average. Bayard’s situation was specifically referenced in Pillen’s report. But six others, including Scottsbluff, Mitchell and Minatare, held their tax-request growth below the average despite losing ground in state aid. Scottsbluff Public Schools’ 2024 school aid fell by 0.6%, but the district slashed its 2024-25 property tax request by 15.5%. The school board voted in June to pay off its Bluffs Middle School renovation bonds five years early. Pillen’s report acknowledged that state-aid levels don’t explain all K-12 tax increases. They “could be due to a loss in state aid ... increasing needs in the community or simply from overspending,” it said. Stuart Simpson, who will retire in June as North Platte’s executive director of finance, said the aid formula is meant to adjust for each district’s unique circumstances. It steers “equalization aid” to districts with educational “needs” that cost more than their “resources,” mainly property taxes. But Simpson said it’s how the school-aid formula measures “needs” — largely student populations, family incomes and families for whom English isn’t their first language — that so often frustrates taxpayers and lawmakers. “You can’t compare North Platte to Scottsbluff or Lexington or Alliance or McCook,” he said. The formula “is trying to address the needs of school districts compared with the economic development in the community.” If the Legislature “pushes down the property taxes” with more dollars, “they’ll push more into equalization aid to support a school district,” said Simpson, who became Alliance’s school finance director the year the current aid formula was founded. “But how can you do it when you have a shortfall?” The Star-Herald's final "tax tracker" story for Scotts Bluff County's 2024-25 "budget season" shows unofficial gross and net tax bills for three sample Scottsbluff-Gering homes and county agricultural operations apiece. The Star-Herald's second "tax tracker" story of the 2024-25 local "budget season" accounts for final taxable values and the Legislature's making a K-12 income tax credit an automatic tax-bill discount. A summer 2024 Unicameral special session changed a potential 30% income tax break on Nebraska property owners' 2023 school taxes into a direct discount on December's 2024 property tax bills. Schools' share of other 2023 property tax credits, including homestead exemptions, are excluded from the new direct credit. Here's the estimated 2024 school tax breaks from "frontloading" the former income tax credit for the Star-Herald’s sample Scottsbluff-Gering homes and Scotts Bluff County agricultural properties: • Home 1 (Scottsbluff): 27.9% • Home 2 (Gering): 28.2% • Home 3 (Terrytown): zero* • Ag 1 (ranch, southeast of Lyman): 27.8% • Ag 2 (farm, northwest of Mitchell): 24.8% • Ag 3 (farm, southwest and southeast of Melbeta): 27.6% *Received a full homestead exemption in 2023, canceling out potential school property tax credit. Home 3 likely will pay zero in 2024 property taxes if its full homestead exemption is renewed. Sources: State of Nebraska, Scotts Bluff County; Star-Herald analysis We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.Canadian freestyle ski star Mikael Kingsbury seeks to extend record
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