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KEARNEY — A study conducted by University of Nebraska at Kearney geography professors Paul Burger and Jason Combs examined the possibility of having 28 counties in the state.

Nebraska currently has 93 counties.

“We’re looking at what’s the feasibility here given a geographical perspective, the current county seats, the population settlement pattern, transportation networks, how might it look, what would it cost taxpayers, and then posing the question: Are there any services or functions that could be improved in such a way?” Burger said.

The study, which was released Wednesday by the Omaha-based Platte Institute for Economic Research, says Nebraska counties were established during pioneer days when citizens rode horses to the county seat and home within the same day.

Burger and Combs found that proximity is no longer a priority because technology has changed.

The objectives of the study were to identify new counties that would best minimize overall transportation cost, assign each county with a consolidated county center and estimate each counties’ increased transportation cost.

The study says one of the benefits of consolidating counties could be that money would be saved by reducing the duplication of administrators and other expenses.

The United States has more than 83,000 local government units, which is about one for every 3,700 residents. The United Kingdom has one local government for every 115,000 citizens.

Burger said the study looks at the possibility of providing services that are more centrally located given the population distribution and what it would cost taxpayers.

In the study, Burger and Combs assigned a consolidated county center to each new county. The consolidated county center would be where services in support of the county would be located, Burger said.

The selection of these centers used the following guidelines:

? No census block group should have to travel more than 60 miles to a service center.

? The population served by each consolidated county center should not exceed 60,000 when practical.

? Counties should not be subdivided in their assignment to the consolidated county center.

? More densely populated counties in eastern Nebraska, such as Cass, Dodge, Douglas, Lancaster, Otoe and Washington are excluded from analysis.??

To calculate the increased transportation costs necessary for citizens with reassigned county seats, the researchers used two distance computations.

The first was from the point representing the county seat and the other to the new consolidated county center.

Hub Territory’s counties — Buffalo, Custer, Dawson, Franklin, Gosper, Harlan, Kearney, Phelps and Sherman — would be consolidated into three counties centered on Broken Bow, Kearney and Lexington a map accompanying the study shows.

The study began as an undergraduate research project in Burger’s Geography 416: Geographic Applications class. Three students completed the project in the fall of 2008 and won at UNK Student Research Day.

“It was a great little exercise in spatial analysis,” Burger said.

e-mail to:

sara.giboney@kearneyhub.com

Talkback

Do you think potential savings would outweigh the added travel expenses if Nebraska consolidated county services in only 28 centers rather than today’s 93 counties? Share your thoughts at

letters@kearneyhub.com.

Don’t consolidate counties

I think consolidating Nebraska’s counties from the current 93 down to 28 would be a bad idea, as is suggested in a study by two professors at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. I don’t see how you would save money on transportation. You would still have to cover the same area and possibly even drive more.

Then you would have to build larger jails to accommodate for the ones that are going to be closed, so what savings are there?

What would you do with the abandoned buildings that will be left behind? Something will have to be done with them, and that would constitute another cost.

Then there are travel costs for the people who have to travel farther to get to the new centers. What kind of cost is that going to be for the taxpayers with the price of gas going up?

What about the loss of jobs that will go along with this plan? In my opinion this is a real bad idea and should be thrown in the garbage.

Calvin Durand, Kearney

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