John Denney Superintendent

"I'm sure the whole of Nebraska knows what it's like to endure a winter of cold weather right smack in the middle of summer. It can really make you cranky."

That was the way news publisher William Westfall spoke from his office in Lincoln, in 1922, during a debate over a state budget proposal that left many rural Nebraska farmers and ranchers reeling from its cold-weather spending limits. "Until the $4 per week for farmers was increased," he said, "we will hardly get a crop out of the ground this winter."

Westfall was the key player in the March 21 meeting of Lincoln City Council members, who on Monday adopted a $15.65-per-week budget that prohibited cold weather spending in a city of more than 21,000.

The budget's specific provisions relied on a legal twist that Westfall drew on for his argument: the issue of the distribution of federal farm subsidies to counties in the state. Westfall argued that if each county was issued a regular allotment of subsidies, it would "be a perpetual source of funds for Nebraska, for political and financial support to the families out of the state all to the disadvantage of the farmer and rancher in the rest of the state."

The state farm commissioner argued, in other words, that in a winter in which many counties are hit by a severe cold snap, as well as a disastrous winter for business, their allotment of subsidies would drop sharply, reducing the state's income from farm and ranch incomes. Council members, given Westfall's authority to levy the minimum budget for the city, may have been simply following the reasoning on which he had offered his alternative budget.

Pro- and anti-subsidy sections of local budgets are frequently stacked. In this case, council members said, a decrease in federal farm aid to farmers would endanger Nebraska's infrastructure already operating at low pressure and depend on rural weather for much of the year.

These voices are familiar to Nebraska residents, and several had been at the city council meeting.

"I feel like we would have been better off," said fellow councilor Paul Johnson, a farm manager, as he pointed out the budgetary implications of both the pro-farm-subsidy and the anti-subsidy sections.

As part of a budget proposal in March, Lincoln held its second City Council meeting of the year.