LINCOLN, Nebraska – Nebraska lawmakers began debating a special session bill on Tuesday that would reduce rising property taxes. The bill will be implemented primarily through mid-year budget cuts, spending caps and shifts to sales and special taxes. However, several bills that would bring in millions of dollars in additional revenue each year are likely to be at risk.

New revenue sources include proposals to legalize marijuana and expand online gambling. Another proposal would free up an estimated $25 million a year by allowing early release on parole for inmates who meet certain criteria and encouraging judges to offer some offenders alternatives to prison. This would reduce prison overcrowding and reduce the state’s costs of feeding and caring for inmates.

Republican Governor Jim Pillen called a special summer session after his proposal to cut property taxes by an average of 40% was rejected by the Legislature during the regular session earlier this year.

Skyrocketing real estate and land prices in recent years have led to rising property taxes for both homeowners and farmers. Almost all members of Nebraska’s officially nonpartisan legislature agree that ever-increasing property taxes are forcing some people, including young and elderly people on fixed incomes, out of their homes.

But they disagree about how to solve the problem. Democrats accuse Pillen and his allies of wanting to lower property taxes at the expense of the poor, while some hardliners among conservatives oppose any tax increase without significant spending cuts.

Democratic Senator Terrell McKinney introduced the bill to reduce prison overcrowding and costs, but it did not leave committee.

McKinney and fellow Democrat Justin Wayne have also proposed bills that would legalize marijuana use and regulate its production and distribution.

“This could potentially bring in $150 million,” McKinney said Tuesday. “You don’t want to have that conversation, and that’s what I find outrageous when we come here and you tell us to put everything on the table.”

The issue of marijuana legalization could appear on the November ballot after a petition received nearly 115,000 signatures submitted to state election officials in July — more than the 87,000 needed. The Nebraska Secretary of State’s office is currently verifying the signatures.

A plan by Democratic Senator Eliot Bostar would put a proposal to allow online sports betting on the November ballot. The General Affairs Committee has advanced the proposal for debate in the full House, but without a companion bill that would adjust the ballot wording deadlines to get it on the ballot. Bostar estimates the proposal could raise more than $30 million in tax revenue per year.

Wayne, who supports the expanded gambling bill, said Nebraska is losing revenue that state residents already spend on online sports betting simply by crossing the border into neighboring states where it is allowed. That happened during the last College World Series in Omaha, west of Iowa, where online sports betting is allowed, he said.

“If they were driving, they would literally drive to Carter Lake (Iowa), and if not, they would go to the Bob Kerrey Bridge, pick up their phone and make a bet,” Wayne said. “All the proceeds are gone.”

The Pillen-backed plan, which was still in flux Tuesday, would make dozens of goods and services currently exempt from sales tax subject to the state’s 5.5 percent sales tax. That includes things like pet grooming and veterinary care, real estate transactions, lawn mowing and landscaping, taxi and other transportation services, moving and storage. Many farm services and purchases — including machinery, chemicals, seed, irrigation and grooming and veterinary care for livestock — remain exempt.

Pillen’s plan also calls for the introduction of several so-called sin taxes on the purchase of candy, soda, cigarettes, e-cigarettes, CBD products and alcohol, and for limiting the amount that public schools and city and county governments can collect in property taxes.

Lawmakers are expected to debate a version of the governor’s proposal later this week.