County’s Metro budget share rises

Jeff Schweers

Wednesday, Feb. 18, 1998 | 10:16 a.m.

On the see-saw that is the funding formula for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's budget, Clark County is at the bottom this year.

The plan proposed to determine how much the county and the city of Las Vegas should pay for the 1998-99 Metro budget is tilted slightly in favor of the city this year, meaning it will pay a lower percentage than last year.

Clark County's percentage share increase would amount to an $80,000 increase if applied to the $187 million 1997-98 budget, county officials calculated.

But Metro officials said the percentage shift is insignificant.

"My recollection is there is no impact on the current year," Metro budget director Lois Roethel said. "But that depends on how many decimal points you calculate out."

Last year, the formula caused about a $1.6 million shift in the city's share of the budget. The year before that, the county saw only a slight shift in its share.

The plan is the statistical base for determining the allocation of funding between the city and county, based on population, calls for service and felony crimes during the preceding year.

This year's shift can be attributed to the county's increase in calls for service at the same time the city's calls for service went down. The county's calls for service increased from 229,303 to 249,096 while the city's actually fell from 232,825 to 228,793.

As a result, the county's budget share will shift from 53.6 percent to 54.1 percent while the city's share will fall back from 46.4 percent to 45.9 percent.

Next year's Metro budget will be distributed Thursday and formally presented at the Feb. 25 Metro Fiscal Affairs Committee meeting.

Roethel said she is projecting a budget of more than $200 million, mainly due to an increase in the tax override that voters approved in 1996 to pay for 450 new uniformed positions.

During the first year, the tax override was 3 percent. The tax override goes up to 8 percent next year.