LINCOLN — Nebraska’s 93 counties can cut costs and find efficiencies without closing historic courthouses or threatening anyone’s beloved county-number license plates.
That’s what the head of the Nebraska Association of County Officials told a panel of lawmakers Friday.
Larry Dix, the group’s executive director, said a measure that would start the process of county consolidation in Nebraska is unneeded.
Counties already are working together to achieve the cost-cutting aims of Legislative Bill 826, he said.
“It hasn’t been the consolidation of counties that’s been going on, but it’s the consolidation of services,” he said. “There’s all sorts of consolidation of services that are taking place before our eyes.”
LB 826 calls for the Legislature’s Planning Committee to develop a plan to reduce the number of counties from 93 to about 30 by 2018.
State Sen. Rich Pahls of Omaha, who introduced the bill, said he hoped to get people thinking about the idea.
He said Nebraska’s county lines were drawn so residents could travel to the county seat on horseback or by stagecoach, conduct their business and return home the same day.
Those lines don’t make sense now, especially when looking at the per-capita cost of county government in the state’s less populated counties, Pahls said.
But his pitch met with decided skepticism from colleagues on the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.
Sen. Kate Sullivan of Cedar Rapids said decisions about county mergers should come from the grassroots, not from the Legislature.
She also asked whether Pahls was as interested in city-county mergers, such as in Douglas County.
Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha asked about the fate of historic courthouses and about pride of community. He said people generally don’t want government telling them what to do.
Dix said the county association has voted to study county efficiency, both now and 10 years down the road. In his testimony, he listed a number of ways counties are cooperating to reduce costs:
Ÿ Counties now handle law enforcement for many towns that once had their own police officers.
Ÿ Several counties share weed supervisors.
Ÿ County clerks in all but seven counties handle other jobs, as well. In 13 counties, they wear five hats, he said.
Ÿ Lancaster County merged the assessor and register of deeds offices.
The committee took no immediate action on the bill.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9583, martha.stoddard@owh.com
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