Nebraska’s chief HR officer to resign later this month after eight years with state

Nebraska’s chief human resources officer who also serves as the director of the state’s Department of Administrative Services will resign later this month to return to the private sector, Gov. Jim Pillen announced Wednesday.

Jason Jackson, who has been the state’s top HR officer since 2016, is set to leave state government Sept. 27, Pillen said in a news release announcing the move.

“Jason exemplifies what it means to be a dedicated public servant,” Pillen said. “Under his leadership at DAS, that agency improved its responsiveness, not only to other agencies, but also in how it interacts with public entities.

“That role is one of tremendous responsibility. “Jason has much to be proud of when he reflects on his many accomplishments with the state.”

In his own news release, Auditor Mike Foley called Jackson “a man of impressive competence and integrity.”

“When Jason tells you something, you can take it to the bank,” Foley said. “His positive influence on state government operations has been enormous. He will be missed.”

Jackson, whose former Gov. Pete Ricketts hired from the private sector and lured from California to be the state’s HR head in 2016, was appointed by Ricketts to take over DAS in 2018 after Ricketts fired his predecessor.

When Pillen was elected to succeed Ricketts in 2022, he retained Jackson to continue serving in both roles.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Jackson, a graduate of the US Naval Academy and a veteran who served in Iraq, said he always viewed his time in state government as “a tour of duty.”

“I looked up and it had been eight years,” he said. “So for me, this is just — it’s time for a change.”

Jackson, who said he and his family plan to stay in Lincoln, did not rule out a return to the public sector in the future. But for now, he said, he plans to return to the private sector to refresh its skills and keep up with what’s happening in the human resources and technology industries.

“The timing is just right for me to do that,” he said, adding that his future plans aren’t yet finalized.

Soon after his arrival in Nebraska, Jackson made headlines as the state’s chief HR officer when he and Ricketts announced in 2017 that they would ask lawmakers to pass a series of measures to increase accountability within the Nebraska State Patrol following a series of agency scandals.

That announcement came six months after Ricketts fired the head of the State Patrol following a review of the agency led by Jackson over stated that Col. Brad Rice had interference in internal investigations.

A year later, when Ricketts dismissed DAS Director Byron Diamond over his handling of the alleged mistreatment of female agency employees, Ricketts tabbed Jackson to lead the agency, which includes the state accounting, state building and human resources divisions, among others.

When he appoints Jackson to lead DAS, Ricketts highlighted Jackson’s help in initiating a hiring freeze that reduces the state employee workforce by 4%, expanding maternity benefits for state workers, extending state government’s veterans hiring preference to include spouses and updating sexual harassment policies for state agencies.

His reform efforts did not stop there.

Jackson later championed legislation to make changes to the state’s procurement process after Nebraska selected a troubled Kansas-based nonprofit to oversee care of abused and neglected children in the Omaha area that never met caseload standards set by state law and continually fell short of other contract requirements .

But he also defended the decision to contract with St. Francis Ministries, a decision in which his department worked with the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Legislature delivered comprehensive procurement reform this year, passing legislation that calls for cost realism when assessing bids to help ensure artificially low bids — like the one St. Francis provided before inking a contract with the state in 2019 — don’t have a leg-up in securing government contracts.

Jackson mentioned the legislation, introduced by Speaker John Arch of La Vista, as he reflected on his proudest accomplishments Wednesday.

“Reforming the State Procurement Act, that hadn’t been attempted in a generation,” he said.

Jackson is among the defendants in a filed lawsuit against the state by a contractor in 2022 over the bidding process to operate the state’s Medicaid managed care program.

In 2023, DAS faced criticism from an Omaha lawmaker after a bill proposal drafted by a policy adviser to Jackson and made public in November suggested the agency would seek “a legal definition of sex” in the 2024 legislative session.

No lawmaker introduced a bill this year to provide such a definition, which Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha cast as the latest in a series of steps by the governor and his allies meant “to target and discriminate through legislation.”

Jackson was also integral in Ricketts’ administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 — another role that he mentioned in an interview Wednesday as he reflected on his eight years in state government.

“I think Nebraskans should really be appreciative of just how accessible their government is and how responsive their government is,” he said. “Coming from California … the prospect of me even meeting my governor would have been infinitesimal. And Nebraskans just have the great fortune of having a government that’s really close to the people.”