“Ignorance of the law is no excuse” stands strong as a principle of jurisprudence.

That notwithstanding, county officials who rub shoulders each day with officers of the court appear to be feigning ignorance of the most basic tenets of the wage and hour law.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, in existence for more than 70 years, requires non-supervisory personnel to be paid hourly with overtime pay of time and a half after 40 hours.

The county is in the process of rectifying the situation, but has offered no explanation of what prompted the change or why this was not accomplished long ago.

Reporter Eric Freeman last week documented officials’ access to knowledge of the most basic of wage and hour rules. Conferences attended this year and in recent years offered sessions with titles such as “Is your county prepared for a DOL Wage & Hour Audit” and “Exempt or Nonexempt: Enforcement of the Wage and Hour Regulations.”

Why no one from Platte County bothered to take heed of these sessions mystifies us. Consequences for noncompliance can be onerous.

We fear that this disregard may be indicative of a larger concern being asked by more than a few people: Should Nebraska’s county government system be relegated to the museum along with the horse buggies in use when it was devised?

A study released last week by the Platte Institute for Economic Research outlines a possible consolidation of counties. The plan would maintain the eight Omaha-Lincoln area counties as well as Adams, Buffalo, Hall, Lincoln, Madison and Scotts Bluff counties.

The remainder of the state would be divided into units of about 60,000 people with the governmental center located no more than 60 miles from residents and no existing counties being divided.

The study calculates increased transportation costs for residents of the larger units with a resulting cost of about 50 cents per person. The potential for savings through consolidation is noted, but no specifics are projected.

The Platte Institute report indicates they offer the study as “a basis for further discussion and possible future research … .” We think their suggestion for its use is a bit modest.

A bolder proposal might include eliminating all elected offices, except for county supervisors, in favor of hiring civil servants to carry out counties’ business, moving to a metro form of government in the eight populous eastern counties, expanding rural access to broadband and making nearly all services available online, and re-evaluating the fiefdom ridden township system.

Change does not come easily or quickly, but problems such as the one now being faced in Platte County could be minimized or eliminated with more streamlined and professional governance.