KEARNEY, Neb. -- A U.S. senator is opening a third office in the state.

On Monday, Sen. Pete Ricketts opened his Kearney office, introduced staff and explained the constituent services offered through his office. 

“This is what really will help a lot of Nebraskans be able to make that personal contact right here in the center part of the state,” Ricketts said. 

Ricketts’ staff will be able to assist people with concerns, complains and questions. 

Director of Central Nebraska Constituent Services Sarah Mills said the office will be able to help with issues like passport and visa assistance, IRS, tax return issues, and more. 

Mills said she will also be visiting 29 counties with mobile offices across central Nebraska. 

“We’re trying to make sure that we have that presence out in all of the counties in Nebraska so that everyone has an opportunity to share their opinions,” Mills said. 

On his transition to the senate, Ricketts said it has been just like he expected. 

“Both republicans and democrats have come up to me, and introduced themselves, offered help look for ways to be able to work together," Ricketts said. "That’s really what the Senate is about. Making sure we can find those areas of common ground for the people of Nebraska and our entire country,” Ricketts said. 

Ricketts addressed his most recent high-profile vote, which was against raising the debt ceiling. 

“A couple of things in there, though, that were amendments that we tried to offer that were not voted on, that were very important to me was, one, not adding more people to welfare. This actually increase welfare spending by about $2.1 billion as governor I had worked very diligently to get people to find better jobs getting to the workforce, rather than putting them on welfare. And the other one was defense, in this time when we’ve got more aggressive adversaries like Russia and the Chinese communist party. We've got to have a strong defense and I felt like we need to have more defense spending to be able to counter those threats,” Ricketts said. 

The Kearney office will be open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Senator Ricketts is planning to open an office in Lincoln soon.