Fewer counties better?

LINCOLN — Less is more — as in more savings of tax dollars — when it comes to the number of Nebraska counties, a report released Wednesday suggested.

It doesn't make sense to have 93 counties in the state, according to the study, conducted for the Omaha-based Platte Institute for Economic Research.

After all, those counties were established in pioneer days, when it was important to be able to ride a horse back and forth to the county seat within the same day.

Modern-day Nebraska could get along with 28 counties — with only 20 of them outside the eight-county Omaha/Lincoln metropolitan area, according to the report, written by University of Nebraska-Kearney geography professors Paul Burger and H. Jason Combs.

The new “consolidated county centers,” or county seats, would be no further than 60 miles from most citizens.

While citizens would have to spend more on transportation to get to the county seat, that cost likely would be offset by reducing the duplication of administrators and other expenses, according to John S. McCollister, executive director of the Platte Institute.

“The ultimate goal is to save money,” McCollister said, adding that a future study might seek to detail the exact savings.

Consolidation of Nebraska's counties is not a new idea, but with the state mired in a recession, the idea might be making a comeback.

Because of population declines in rural areas, 36 counties now have fewer than 5,000 residents, and 11 have fewer than 1,000 residents.

“Is this coming back again?” asked Becky Swanson, who serves as the county clerk, county election commissioner, clerk of the district court and register of deeds for Arthur County, the state's smallest county.

There are 378 residents in the ranching county, which sits just north of Lake McConaughy and Ogallala in the sparsely settled Sand Hills. The courthouse in Arthur, Neb. — the county's only town — has three employees if you count the sheriff, who does most of his work outside the building.

Both Swanson and Larry Dix, executive director of the Nebraska Association of County Officials, said they don't see how county consolidation would save much money. They said it would face fierce opposition, similar to when rural schools are consolidated.

There would be just as many miles of road to maintain, just as many bridges to fix and just as much crime to stop, Dix said.

“If we drew up county lines today, we wouldn't draw them like we did,” he said. “But we probably wouldn't separate Douglas from Sarpy County, and we might not even put the state capital in Lincoln.”

Dix noted that talk about eliminating the county numbers from state license plates triggered a revolt from citizens loyal to their own counties. Merging counties would require a statewide vote to amend the Nebraska Constitution.

Frontier history is full of stories detailing fights between towns to become the county seat.

Wouldn't that be the case again?

“That's for somebody else to answer,” said Burger, the UNK professor. This study, he said, was about reconfiguring the state into 28 counties — not the political chances of it happening.

Contact the writer:

402-473-9584, paul.hammel@owh.com

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