The study doesn’t analyze how much money might be saved by this plan (or, as the World-Herald article notes, whether it would be politically possible), but it seems to be intended as a concrete plan that could be used as a starting point for discussion or further research. The study also provides an estimate of the amount of extra money it would cost the citizens of those regions to travel that additional distance for county services. (These numbers are across the entire regions, not just the counties I’ve named.)

So what does it give us? For Central Nebraskans, here’s how it breaks down.
— Greeley, Hamilton, Howard and Merrick counties: You’re now headed to Grand Island. Total cost for your region: $10,941.
— Garfield, Loup, Sherman and Valley counties: You’re going to Broken Bow. Total cost for your region: $8,484.
— Boone and Nance counties: You’re going to Columbus. Total cost for your region: $10,835.
— Polk County: You’re headed down to York. Total cost for your region: $18,549.
— Wheeler County: You’re going up to O’Neill. Total cost for your region: $2,946.
— Every other county I didn’t mention (that’s Adams, Buffalo, Custer and Hall): You lucked out. Nothing changes for you.
— Oh, by the way, the eight counties that make up the Omaha and Lincoln metro areas are unchanged, too.

So how does the map hold up? The researchers say their goal is to keep people from having to drive more than 60 miles for county services and keep overall populations for regions under 60,000 when possible. In Central Nebraska, at least, they seem to do a decent job with that. There’s a few spots that fall outside the distance goals in our area (Spalding-Grand Island is 67 miles, Petersburg-Columbus is 58), and the Grand Island-based area exceeds 60,000 people, but generally, they seem to meet their own goals.

There’s still the question of whether this would be desirable. While county government isn’t nearly the source of community pride that local schools are, most rural Nebraskans seem to resent anything that could be perceived as a loss of local control — especially when it would result in some inconvenience. And as Larry Dix of the Nebraska Association of County Officials noted in the World-Herald article, it wouldn’t change the amount of roads to maintain or crime to stop.

On the other hand, there could be some real savings in consolidating some the state’s smallest counties, though this study doesn’t tell us precisely how much. It might be worth looking into for the long-term’s sake, though a lot of things would have to happen for rural Nebraskans to be in the mood to support something like this.

What do you think? A reasonable idea worth taking a look at, or another misguided attempt to marginalize rural Nebraska?

*Nance County is a small county northeast of Grand Island and west of Columbus. Its county seat is Fullerton.

The top of the story — and much of the local politics surrounding the case — revolves around the fact that Wetovick hired his sister, Cyndy Pilakowski, to be his full-time assistant.

But as the story hints, the legal issue at play here is an entirely different one. This could be a landmark court case within the state to determine one critical question: Who has the final authority over county offices — county boards or elected officials?

That question has been tied in some way to just about every county budget conflict I’ve heard of. Many times, it boils down to a simple dispute: The board needs to cut the county’s budget in order to keep levy rates from increasing, but no office wants to take the brunt of it. But the situation is different in counties than in schools or cities, where each department is under the authority of the board or council, which has complete leeway to make decisions about it.

In counties, though, each office is run by elected officials who are given power by state law over their office. State law gives county boards power to set the amount of money going toward each office, but only elected officials are allowed to determine how that money’s spent. The state sets a limit on boards’ power, though: They have to allow each office to be adequately staffed.

Of course, there are lot of ways to define “adequately staffed,” and boards and elected officials are not likely to see that the same way. That’s where this case comes in: Wetovick believes the board was infringing on his right to adequately staff his office by denying him money for a full-time secretary, and board argues that it’s merely exercising its legal right to adjust the amount of money assigned to an office. (If it lost that right, the board’s chairman said last year, it would create a “free-for-all” for money among county officials, and the board would lose its ability to fiscally responsible.)

So this case will be critical in shaping that delicate balance of power between county boards and officials. Whichever way the court rules will inevitably tip the balance in one party’s favor, putting the other at a disadvantage. There’s a reason the AP said that officials in counties across the state are watching this one closely: It could end up changing the way Nebraska’s counties are run.