Nebraska counties add new office, new NACo members

Key Takeaways

The real estate adage is location, location, location. But for the Nebraska Association of County Officials, two locations made more sense.

Naturally, proximity to the state capitol is crucial for a policy organization, which explains NACO’s longstanding presence in Lancaster County (Lincoln). But when Executive Director Jon Cannon cuts the state in half from east to west, he sees a more challenging proposition. 

“The population in Nebraska tilts heavily to the east, but the population of county officials is actually streaming a little bit more evenly because of the number of counties,” he said. “What we found was that almost half of county officials live west of that imaginary line. It’s not very efficient to send someone driving to Harrison, which is about as far as you can get from Lincoln and be spending eight hours on the road each way for a three-hour visit.”

The association’s Board of Directors gave Cannon and his deputy, Candace Meredith, the slack to find office space in the western part of the state, and they settled on Ogallala, in Keith County.

“It kind of permeates how we view the state in the sense that we love Douglas County and Lancaster County, but we really serve all 93 counties, so that reflects itself in the fact that we really need to have that second office again so we can project our resources more efficiently,” Cannon said.

That second office, dubbed the NACO West Training Center, includes an office for Operations Clerk Peggy Bass, who moved to staff the facility, and a training center and boardroom dedicated to former executive directors Jack Mills and Larry J. Dix respectively; in all, three offices that the organization leased before opening the building. Before NACO launched a marketing campaign for rentals, the facility played host to 28 events in 13 months.

“We’re just really impressed with the community support,” Meredith said. “Ogallala is a relatively small town, especially compared to Lincoln but the community has really embraced us there.”

Sioux County Commissioner Josh Skavdahl sees it as a major boon to help recruit new officials in more rural counties.

“In many cases in Nebraska, county leadership was almost institutionalized,” he said, noting that many officials have stayed in office for decades and some stay because they don’t see successors willing to step up.

The proximity to the training that will help new county leaders do their job will make the responsibility more attractive.

“Typically, in all those rural counties, you’re a full-time rancher, a farmer or banker, a school teacher, and you don’t have the time to travel two or three days to eastern Nebraska [for training] so it’s attracting and will continue to attract a younger generation into county positions, which is direly needed.”

All-in

As July 2025 dawned, Nebraska became NACo’s newest 100% membership state. Douglas County Commissioner Mary Ann Borgeson set a goal for the state to reach that point when she was NACo president in 2019-2020, but the end of her year, which was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, became the state association’s fuel to tackle the NACo membership effort.

“ARPA (the American Rescue Plan Act) was kind of a big deal and you had these counties that are seeing this influx of cash that they’ve never seen before, so we got out to some of those counties to explain how to use that one-time funding, but we explained that it wouldn’t have been possible without the National Association of Counties working with Congress, the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration and the Treasury Department to make it happen.”

NACo picked up a few new member counties from that, and then the state association Board of Directors voted to combine and collect dues for both organizations simultaneously and added the last few counties. 

That reflects the state association’s theme for its annual conference, “All In,” when the staff will reinforce why national membership is crucial.

“We’ve had conversations at our district meetings in the fall and will in the spring,” Meredith said.

Plugged in to WIR

Nebraska also joined NACo’s Western Interstate Region (WIR) in 2024 as a probationary associate member.

Former Banner County Commissioner Bob Post, who served as Rural Action Caucus (RAC) chair, initiated the move and Skavdahl picked up the mantle when Post left office. Both counties border Wyoming, and both officials saw a lot of similarities with their neighbors to the west.

“When I started diving into their key legislative priorities, I found they really aligned with a lot of the things that we were facing here in Nebraska,” Meredith said, noting that WIR’s advocacy work magnifies work done through RAC. “In some small pockets of Nebraska, we’re facing public lands issues, not on the same scale as Montana or Wyoming, but there are pockets of rural counties that feel like an island, so having WIR support for PILT (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) funding was really important.”

Skavdahl, who works as a rancher, sees Nebraska’s membership as part of a greater agricultural economy.

“I saw that 80% of the cattle that are raised in WIR states go to Nebraska in the end,” for slaughtering, Skavdahl said. “How goes WIR, so goes the beef industry in Nebraska.”