We made it. It’s the final full week of the year, and thus the final Flatwater stories of 2025. We’re not coasting to the finish line, though — the three stories here, plus an unveiling of our new and improved public payroll tool, represent a nice mix of journalism I’d be proud to publish any week.
So let’s pretend I’m Nonprofit News Saint Nick, admittedly and unsurprisingly a day late, clattering down your email chimney to stick a few journalistic scoops in your stockings and some news you can use under the tree.
Before I extend this weird analogy any further, and force myself to think about the fact that my beard is white enough to be Santa’s, on with the week that was.
An eyebrow raiser: Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services recently started divvying up the millions it’s receiving from opioid settlement lawsuits. One recipient jumped out to Flatwater reporter Destiny Herbers: The Central Wyoming Counseling Center, which got $3.4 million from DHHS to build a crisis stabilization center in Kimball.
That’s interesting because it’s headquartered in Wyoming, not Nebraska. And also because the center’s former acting CEO is Steve Corsi — now the CEO of DHHS, the state agency giving away the funds.
Herbers with her final story of a year spent covering Nebraska’s opioid issues, including our inability to properly count how many Nebraskans actually die of drug overdoses, and why that matters.
She also had a story this week in her series Dying Blind, one focused on parents who have lost children to a drug overdose. They told Herbers they got few answers, and scant info, in the aftermath of those deaths.
Eye-popping overtime: A small number of Nebraska state employees are working insane amounts of overtime. Who are they? And why does this keep happening? Joshua Shimkus with the story and the answers.
A taxpayer tool: That overtime story spun out of our new and improved public payrolls database, which now allows you to look up salary info for 43,000-plus employees of 58 different organizations funded by taxpayer dollars. Those orgs includes the state, counties, cities, natural resources districts, public power districts and many more.
This database represents months of public records requests and data work led by Herbers. And it’s information you can use, for the next year, if you’re just curious or if you want to track how your local government spends money on salaries.
Your turn to be Santa Claus: Nonprofit newsrooms like ours are essential to the present and future of news in Nebraska. We deliver investigative stories that no other media outlet can do. We employ a team of correspondents who do stories on people and places across Nebraska — stories that bind us together.
And then we give those stories away for free, to anyone who wants to read them on our site and to any media outlet who wants to republish them.
An example: Yanqi Xu’s recent story done in partnership with the New York Times ran on our website and the Times’ front page. It was also published by media outlets including, but not limited to, the Omaha World-Herald, the Lincoln Journal Star, the Nebraska Examiner, 10/11 News Now in Lincoln, WOWT Channel 6 in Omaha, Norfolk’s News Channel Nebraska, KNOP in North Platte, the Grand Island Independent, the Scottsbluff Star-Herald, the Fremont Tribune, the Norfolk Daily News and the Columbus Telegram.
We’re helping to build, and rebuild, this state’s ability to do good, important journalism. We need your help to do it.
So, if you are feeling that holiday spirit, please give the gift of a donation to our year-end donor campaign.
If you have already done so in 2025 — thank you so much.
Questions wanted: Some of our best story ideas come from readers, and they typically start with a burning question that just cries out for an answer. Have a question that our reporters need to look into? Complete this form or reach our newsroom at [email protected].
Wishing you a merry belated Christmas, happy holidays and a Happy New Year,
Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor
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Here’s what we’re into this week: News from around Nebraska
Every week, we like to share great Nebraska journalism, no matter who made it. Here’s what caught our eye this week:
- I wish I didn’t have to start here, but I do. Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska announced this week he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer and will die way too young. I’m sharing a gift link from the Washington Post, so you can read more here. KETV’s Pete Cuddihy talked to Nebraska Medicine physicians about the diagnosis and how doctors treat the cancer.
I got to know Sasse fairly well when he was a college president and I was a younger reporter covering higher ed. I then wrote about him a bit when he ascended to the U.S. Senate and occasionally drew President Trump’s ire.
I found Sasse to be whip-smart, passionate in his opinions and armed with data to back them. Also, he struck me as wickedly funny. He practically pulsated with energy. He seemed unstoppable. Oh-so-very alive.
My thoughts to Ben, his crew of friends and his loved ones. - Quite a story from the Journal Star’s Chris Dunker, who says that the University of Nebraska paid an outside consultant to evaluate the performance of UNL Chancellor Rodney Bennett. When Dunker did a public records request to see that review, the university told him that it didn’t have it. (You may need LJS subscriber access to view this story.)
- Attorney General Mike Hilgers is dismissing his lawsuit against the Omaha Public Power District after OPPD voted to delay plans to close down a North Omaha coal plant. Stories by KETV and the Nebraska Examiner.
- Gov. Jim Pillen announced in a memo this week that he is unpausing the Business Innovation Act, a program that the Nebraska Department of Economic Development had paused in October. The 2011 law, which distributes millions each year to try to seed new business in Nebraska, has paid off handsomely, research says, returning $16 in revenue for every $1 in state investment. Story by Lev Gringauz of Silicon Prairie News, our sister publication that covers startup business and entrepreneurship in Nebraska.
- The City of Grand Island announced that news media members now may contact the police department’s division chief regarding information about felonies, but the Grand Island Independent’s Jeff Bahr reports that the names of the accused still won’t be listed. A former city administrator said public safety is not enhanced and in fact may be placed at greater risk by providing less crime information. (You may need a subscription to read this story.)
- The Associated Press has a good, in-depth piece on what’s happening in Lexington in the wake of the Tyson plant closure.
- And finally: Whoa, sweet digs! You can now stay at the historic Kearney home built by the first president of what eventually became the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Story on a neat-looking new Airbnb by 10/11 News Now’s Pure Nebraska.
