A Douglas County judge ruled Monday that an attempt by the Omaha City Council to require employers to pay workers of all ages a $15 minimum wage is unlikely to succeed and cannot be enforced.
The ruling from Douglas County District Court Judge Timothy Burns comes after the State of Nebraska sued the City of Omaha over its minimum wage ordinance, which is set to go into effect Thursday.
Omaha’s ordinance was passed in response to the Legislature’s controversial passage of LB258, or the Wage Act, which decreased the minimum wage for 14- and 15-year-old workers to $13.50 per hour. The ordinance also linked annual minimum wage increases to the Consumer Price Index instead of the state’s flat annual increase of 1.75%.
The state sought a temporary injunction to prevent both parts of the ordinance from going into effect. In his order, Burns said Omaha’s attempt to eliminate the lower youth wage is likely preempted by the Wage Act.
But Burns said the city can link annual minimum wage increases to the cost of living instead of the flat 1.75% rate – at least for now. Unless a court order prohibits Omaha from doing so, it will be able to increase its minimum wage by 3.6% in 2027, which would make the city’s minimum wage higher than the state’s.
“Because a City ordinance requiring a higher minimum wage is merely more stringent, it can be harmonized with the State statute and is not preempted,” Burns said.
Home rule charter cities, like Omaha and Lincoln, can enact ordinances that conflict with state law “in an area of purely municipal concern,” Burns wrote. Omaha’s higher cost of living and housing could be a “purely local concern,” he said, but the city has not supplied “any evidence that there is a strictly local concern that requires overriding the State’s minimum wage” for 14- to 15-year olds.
In a statement, the City of Omaha Law Department said it was “pleased” with the ruling and acknowledged that the “portion of the ordinance regarding the youth minimum wage and the training wage will not go into effect at this time.”
“The Court recognized the right of cities, such as Omaha, to govern and enact laws designed to help people living in Omaha,” the statement said. “The issues facing people in Omaha can be different than those in other parts of the State of Nebraska and can be unique. That is why Omaha is a Home Rule Charter City and this order recognizes that right.”
The state also sued the City of Lincoln earlier this year after it adopted an ordinance to keep the minimum wage for all workers at $15 an hour. Lancaster County District Court Judge Lori Maret granted a temporary injunction in July to prevent the enforcement of the ordinance in Lincoln, finding that the state’s preemption arguments were “strong enough” to warrant an injunction.
Lincoln’s ordinance also included a provision to link annual minimum wage increases to the Consumer Price Index. But in that case, the entire ordinance was enjoined.
Both cases are still open, and no final order has been entered. Temporary injunctions are not appealable.