(1) The Legislature may provide funding to the Office of Rural Health for the purpose of funding the cost of resident stipends and benefits, which funding may include health insurance, professional liability insurance, disability insurance, medical education expenses, continuing competency expenses, pension benefits, moving expenses, and meal expenses in family practice residency programs based in Nebraska but which are not under a contract pursuant to section 71-5206. The resident stipends and benefits funded in this section shall apply only to residents who begin family practice residency training at a qualifying institution in years beginning on or after January 1, 1993. The total funding provided in the form of stipend and benefit support per resident to a family practice residency program under this section shall not exceed the total funding provided in the form of stipend and benefit support per resident to a family practice residency program under section 71-5203.

(2) Upon receiving an itemized statement of the cost of stipends and benefits of a family practice residency program from a sponsoring institution and upon determining that the sponsoring institution is not receiving funds under a contract pursuant to section 71-5206, the office may reimburse such institution fifty percent of such cost for each family practice resident in the program. The office may reimburse such institution twenty-five percent of the remaining cost per family practice resident for each year that one of the program's graduates practices family medicine in Nebraska, up to a maximum of three years for each graduate, and an additional twenty-five percent of the remaining cost per resident for each of the program's graduates who practices family medicine in an area of Nebraska classified as of January 1, 1991, by the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services as Medicare Locale 16. The total number of residents receiving annual financial payments made under this section shall not exceed nine students during any school year.