Elko County imposes hiring, wage freeze due to shortfall

Monday, April 17, 2000 | 9:28 a.m.

"This county is approaching a financial crisis like it has never seen before," Commissioner Tony Lesperance warned.

The hiring and salary freezes should save $208,287 and another $100,000 will be saved through a reduction in the contingency fund, the Elko Daily Free Press reported.

Other cost-cutting moves were discussed, but commissioners still need to find an additional $400,000 or more in cuts to meet state guidelines for a balanced budget.

County Manager George Boucher attributed the shortfall to a variety of factors, including an economic slowdown, a mining slump, rising salaries and legal battles against the federal government over environmental issues.

Elko County has been involved in an ongoing fight against the U.S. Forest Service over the fate of a short, unpaved road leading to a wilderness boundary near Jarbidge.

"It's an accumulation of a number of things," Boucher said. "You can't hang it on one thing and say this is the cause."

At a meeting last week, commissioners agreed to keep the county tax rate the same, but asked for a 2 percent across-the-board reduction in department budgets.

When one department head asked where he was expected to make cuts, Lesperance replied, "Turn the heat down in the building."

Commissioner Brad Roberts said a sales or property tax hike would be "just a Band-Aid on a major hemorrhage."

Boucher said economic diversification efforts remain important because mining "has always been a boom-and-bust deal."