This comment was updated Feb. 28, 2018, to clarify the scope of Pew’s testimony.
Matthew Cook, a senior associate with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ project on states’ fiscal health, testified Feb. 7 before the Nebraska Legislature’s Government, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee on the Fiscal Stress Management Act. The bill, L.B. 1111, would create a system to assess the fiscal condition of Nebraska’s local governments. Cook discussed Pew’s research on state strategies to track local governments’ finances and promising approaches to developing fiscal monitoring systems.