Well, I get up at seven, yeah
And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time
It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man
'Cause I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out an ice cold beer
Always seem to be wondering'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man
"Workin' Man" - Words & Music by Lee & Lifeson
The previous governor had made it a goal that our operations be more taxpayer friendly. It was my view that were anything but, with rules that sometimes made it appear that we were. For example, shareholders of incentives companies often had credits distributed to them which they could use to offset their individual state income tax liability. The problem was that individual tax returns were due in April, while most incentive companies filed for extensions and did not file until October or November. This meant that a taxpayer attempting to use incentive credits didn't actually have those credits since the distribution was part of the corporate filing by the incentive company they were receiving credits from. The front office ran a report every month which indicated how long returns were in the department before they were approved. If I saw that a taxpayer was expecting a credit distribution, but hadn't yet received it, I would sit on it until the credit came through. The front office saw these numbers and decided that if, after 60 days, the credit was not available we were to deny the use of the credits and process the return. This sometimes meant that the taxpayer owed money, and at least had to file an amended return after the credit went through. Not very taxpayer friendly, but since the report showed that the number of days that we spent processing a claim was low, it looked like we were taking care of the taxpayer. It took a CPA who was frustrated by this situation to complain directly to the Tax Commissioner to change the procedures.
One of the things that the front office began to notice was that the amount of time that was spent approving claims was excessive. (It was) They directed that a slimmed down procedure for approving claims be developed. RO had no input in the process, but amazingly it really was an efficient, shorter process. Around this time the number of claims that I would be authorized to approve expanded. Initially senior agents could only approve claims where the tax was below a certain amount, which meant only the smallest claims. At first it was doubled, then increased another five fold so that I was approving all but the very largest of claims. Around this time several experienced auditors quit due to the ending of remote work. Several auditors from another area were trained as approvers...and they quit too. One of the things that I did to help keep our average days for claims low was to immediately prioritize a claim that was completed by an examiner. In most cases I could get my approval work done in one day and either sign the claim or send it back with feedback. Mainly I achieved this by not re-doing all the examiners work, not reinventing the wheel, but confirming that they had in fact done the work. Due to my process our metrics were better than they had ever been.
The other area that our group was responsible for was sales and use tax refunds for non-incentive companies. This mainly consisted of individuals and small businesses who had overpaid on sales tax or been charged sales tax in error. In some ways this was easier than incentives claims, since it didn't require as many hoops as incentives claims, but it could be more complicated due to the numerous tax exemptions and exceptions to the exemptions in the sales tax regulations. As claims came in they were added to a spreadsheet which the team would use to decide which claims to work on. When I started in the area we were extremely behind. The front office had mandated that incentives claims were the priority and that nothing else could be worked on as long as there was an incentive claim that was unfinished. This mandate had just been lifted, so we were free to start working these claims. On any given day the claims that had not been started the "To-Be-Assigned" (TBA) claims exceeded 100. We were prioritizing claims that were approaching 180 days, the statutory limit. Taxpayers were getting frustrated and resubmitting claims, so we had many duplicate claims. It was a mess. But this was an area where the team proved to be very efficient at getting these claims done. It was my practice to train new examiners on these claims first and incentives claims later. This meant that they had a lot of practice working a variety of claim types and were able to get proficient quickly. By the end of my time with Revenue we could easily keep the TBA's down below 20 every day, with some days no TBA's!
One of the weirder incidents involved the haunted spreadsheet. The tracking spreadsheet for sales tax refund claims was huge. Nothing was every deleted from it or moved from it. Completed items were simply moved from one tab to another. Data was becoming corrupted. Information was being added, and then a half hour later it was gone. Information that was moved suddenly was back where it started from. My manager and I decided that a new, streamlined tracking Excel file should be created. One of our Business Systems Analysts created a new spreadsheet for us and the ghosts were exorcized! Learning the lessons of the old spreadsheet, it was checked and reviewed every day and errors corrected.
Eventually the changes I made became "the way things are". The results that I achieved was appreciated, not only be my immediate supervisor, but all the way up the management chain, including the Tax Commissioner. I was kept busy training new people, a few who ended up moving on to better paying positions in Revenue or in other agencies. Toward the end of my tenure, there were team mates from other areas of Revenue who transferred into the Refund Claim Group as soon as there was an opening. The last two new examiners had transferred from other areas.
I had been looking at an end point to my working career for a while, I probably started thinking about it three years before I actually did it. About a year before full Social Security retirement age I started seriously looking at the financial aspect and running the numbers. I logged onto the Nebraska Public Employees Retirement System retirement webinars. I asked a lot of questions of Medicare and Social Security and familiarized myself with the various insurance options. I did income and expenditure projections. I had legal pads and Excel spreadsheets full of options. Around six months before I actually retired I set a tentative date. I gave myself the option of staying a month or so past my tentative date if the negotiated raise was high enough (it wasn't). Finally I let my manager know my plans the December before I actually left. A pattern that I had seen in the department over the years was people leaving without management taking steps to make sure the knowledge that that person carried was preserved, that a replacement was trained. In addition to whatever the job description said, there were a lot of things that I did that weren't written down anywhere, processes that I had instituted myself. Even though it would cease to be my problem five minutes after I left on my last day I didn't want to leave a mess behind me and have all my hard work unravel. There were exceptions to the rule, and there was a procedure for posting for a position before it actually came open once a firm end date was announced. I pushed hard for them to do this. In April I notified HR of my retirement date and they posted for my position shortly thereafter.
Most of my time during this period was spent reviewing and updating procedures, and creating procedures for the tasks that were not covered by officially sanctioned procedures. I cross-trained several of my team to take over some of my responsibilities in case a replacement wasn't hired. About six weeks before I was scheduled to retire management chose my replacement. Fortunately it was someone with the relevant experience. I was concerned that training someone from outside the department, or even from another area of the department, would require a lot of training, including in the basics. My replacement had actually started in the Refund Claim Group and had been an examiner in the Incentives Group, so training in the fundamentals wasn't needed. I was able to ease her into the position's responsibilities. Management had decided that my replacement would be classified as a supervisor, which I had not been. This meant that she would be required to conduct annual reviews and attend meetings, which I had been spared. She quickly took over the job responsibilities until my last few weeks at work I was basically a consultant, without a lot to do!
Finally my last day, June 13, 2025 came. The department had a retirement party for me that several family members as well as friends who had previously retired attended. The director in charge of our area gave a heartfelt speech praising me for my contributions and presented me with a certificate enrolling me as an Admiral in the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska. My immediate manager also gave a speech, recounting my contributions to the department. The members of my team presented me with gifts. One team member gave a short speech about how he viewed me as a wise grandfather. I felt both appreciated and respected.
And that was the difference in my last two and a half years. I was respected for my contributions and my point of view was appreciated. In many of the jobs I held over the years, even when I was a key person, I was never really more than a cog in the machine. In this last hurrah of my working life, I finally was given the respect that is really the due of any employee.