By AARON SANDERFORD
Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — Nebraska’s next governor, Jim Pillen of Columbus, plans to use the people’s mansion more than he has said.
In an interview last week, Pillen clarified his previous comments about his living arrangements, saying he plans to spend much of the work week at the mansion when the Legislature is in session. He said he will spend weekends at home but will be in Lincoln overnight regularly.
“I think I need to be more effective at communicating on that,” Pillen said. “We will be here.”
There will be exceptions, he said. He may spend some weeknights at home when he finishes a travel day closer to Columbus, for example, or when his family gets together.
During his first legislative session, which starts Jan. 4, Pillen expects to spend weeknights at the mansion alone while his wife, Suzanne, stays in Columbus with their youngest child, Izic, a high school senior.
After Izic graduates, First Lady Suzanne Pillen will spend more time in Lincoln, Pillen said.
“Next year, you know, she’ll be with me three, four nights a week during session,” he said. “We’re … going to be there. But we’re still keeping home, too.”
Current Gov. Pete Ricketts has faced some public pushback — and questions about public costs — about not moving into the Governor’s Mansion full time while in office.
Nebraska taxpayers, through the Department of Administrative Services, pay a baseline of $180,000-$200,000 a year to maintain the building and grounds.
Since 2007, regardless of how often the governor slept at the mansion, taxpayers also have paid about $138,000 a year, through the Governor’s Office budget, for two housing staff members and related expenses, including an average food bill of about $18,000 a year.
Why? Because governors host events at the 15,340-square-foot mansion, ranging from regular meetings with staff to tailgate parties before Husker football games.
Taxpayers do pay more in travel and security costs when the governor chooses to stay at home, as happened more often under Ricketts than his predecessors. Specific costs were not immediately available.
The state has operated the current mansion, across H Street from the Capitol, since the late 1950s. Governors of both major parties have lived there while serving.
When Mike Johanns, a former Lincoln mayor, was governor, he raised some hackles for splitting time between the mansion and his house on Lincoln’s Capitol Beach. But he made the mansion his home.
Former Gov. Dave Heineman, who is from Fremont, lived in the mansion full-time with his family.
Ricketts was the first modern-era Nebraska governor not to formally move into the mansion. He commuted from his Omaha home. His children were in school in Omaha, and he didn’t want to disrupt their lives more than he had to, Ricketts has explained.
A spokeswoman said Ricketts has stayed at the mansion more than people know, spending weeknights there during legislative sessions, especially before COVID-19 hit. His family drove down to eat dinner with him on Wednesdays.
Pillen said he understands the symbolic importance of the mansion to the people of Nebraska. He has said he has no plans to de-emphasize the mansion’s role or sell it.