*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.