No new taxes needed for $601 mil. budget

Jeff Schweers

Tuesday, May 20, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

No news is good news, especially if the news is that county residents will see no new tax increases next year.

The County Commission approved a $601 million budget Monday without raising the government's operating and debt rates.

The $15.2 million increase over last year's budget is supported by a projected 7.4 percent increase in all revenues, officials said. Most of that comes from a 9.4 percent increase in sales tax revenue and a 7 percent boost in property tax assessments.

"We feel these revenue projections are conservative but prudent," Finance Director Rosemary Vassiliadis told the commission.

Despite the revenue increase, Vassiliadis increased spending by only 2 percent, saying she didn't want to build a budget based on such volatile resources as the sales and construction taxes.

Sales taxes account for 34.2 percent of the budget, while license and permit fees account for 18 percent, or a total of 52 percent. The most stable resource, property taxes, make up 25.4 percent of the total revenues.

Vassiliadis also said the budget conforms to the taxpayers' bill of rights and maintains a 10 percent ending fund balance, or reserve. The ending fund balance is projected at $68.4 million.

"I'm very comfortable with the budget," Vassiliadis said.

Commissioners for the most part were comfortable with the budget, too, but some questioned spending $2.3 million on renovations to the building and zoning departments in the two-year-old Clark County Government Center.

"I have some concerns about spending that much money on a building we just moved into," Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates said.

The recommendations were made by the Delta Team, a group of mid-level managers trying to make the land use management process more efficient by eliminating some of the steps to getting a building permit.

Vassiliadis said the item was a conceptual use of building enterprise funds, not a legal allocation. Commissioner Mary Kincaid said the money should not be encumbered for the Delta Team until it provided an update on its activities.

The new budget includes 140 new jobs, bringing the number of full-time county employees to 5,281. Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates asked that staff hold off on appointing a new justice of the peace to give the public a chance to elect that person in 1998.

More than 55 percent of the budget is committed to public safety and criminal justice, or $292 million. The budget includes 227 new hires for Metro Police, including 167 commissioned officers, most of whom are coming from a voter-approved tax override.

By contrast, only 15.9 percent of the budget is actually spent on general government, or about $80 million.

The county's total budget for 1997-98 is $2.6 billion. That includes $594.9 million in a special revenue fund, which pays for master transportation projects and the local law enforcement grant, a $769.4 million capital projects fund, and a $197 million debt service fund.

The board also approved a $232 million budget for the Las Vegas Valley Water District, based on a 20.7 percent increase in revenues, including Southern Nevada Water Authority regional connection charges and rates.

The district's operating expenses, including SNWA connection and commodity charges, has gone up $25 million, or 13.5 percent.