State below average in government staffing: Worker discrepancy blamed on growth

Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2001 | 11:09 a.m.

Nevada's rapid growth is the biggest reason the state has fewer teachers, police and street maintenance workers per person than the national average, local officials say.

A U.S. Commerce Department survey based on 2000 figures revealed that Nevada had the equivalent of 307.5 full-time local government employees per 10,000 residents, compared to 390 nationally. That put the state 21 percent below the national per capita in terms of employees who work for cities, counties and school districts.

The lack of teachers and support staff in public schools accounted for most of the difference. There were 211 public school employees nationally per 10,000 residents; Nevada had only 138 per 10,000 residents. Among teachers alone, Nevada was 31.8 percent below the national average, which came as no surprise to an official with the teachers' union.

"That is pretty consistent with what we've said all along about Nevada's efforts to fund quality schools," John Jasonek, executive director of the Clark County Education Association, said. "When you're below the national average in funding per pupil, you'll be below the national average in everything else to do with education."

Not all sectors of local government in Nevada were below national staffing averages, however. Examples include airport and parks and recreation employees, as well as civilians who work in law enforcement, all of which are well above the U.S. average.

Thanks largely to McCarran International Airport, Nevada has more than four times as many public employees at airports than the national average. Two reasons given by McCarran spokeswoman Hilarie Grey is that the airport is seventh busiest in the nation and much of the work is done "in house" rather than by independent contractors.

"We have everything from business offices that deal with concessionaires to runway inspectors, custodians and the ramp controllers that guide the planes from the taxiway to the gates," Grey said. "We have our own planning and construction management staff and ground transportation employees. Other airports contract out for particular services."

The problem with comparative public employment statistics is that they often do not account for demographic differences in each state, Nevada Taxpayers Association President Carole Vilardo said. Vilardo said that staffing levels often reflect the populations they serve. A rainy New England state, for instance, may have more need for street cleaners than an arid state such as Nevada, she said.

"If a government had a profit motive, it would operate as efficiently as it possibly could," Vilardo said. "I'm not sure all government operations are efficient. They need to sit down and look at whether they're taking advantage of technology to make jobs easier so they're more efficient."

Still, the Clark County School District has indicated it needs more than 1,600 new teachers for fall. Jasonek said one problem the county has with recruitment is that it pays beginning teachers well below the national average. He said the solution to the teacher shortage is not "magical."

"It's going to take funding, and nobody wants to hear that," Jasonek said. "It's not like we're a poor state. Nevada has the wealth to divert some of that money into the educational system."

Nevada was about 23 percent below the U.S. average in local government staffing for street maintenance and repair, 24 percent below average in maintenance and operation of sewers and sewage disposal and 83 percent below average for street cleaning and solid waste management. Much of the latter could be attributed to the fact that garbage collection and landfill operations are run locally by a private company, Republic Services of Southern Nevada.

But Clark County Public Works spokesman Bobby Shelton said staffing levels in his department are not keeping pace with the county's 5,967 lane miles, a number that continues to increase because of growth. Paradise Road is an example of a street that was formerly maintained as a state highway but returned back to the county earlier this year without added staffing, he said.

"We may have street channels with debris because we don't have the manpower to clean them on a daily basis," Shelton said. "That means there may be more of a tendency for flooding to occur.

"Filling cracks in streets is not done as often as we'd like to do it."

The state is about 48 percent below the national average in staffing for public health services. Dr. Donald Kwalick, chief health officer for the Clark County Health District, said some job functions the Commerce Department included in this category -- such as alcohol treatment -- are handled locally by the private sector.

It so happens that the health district is reviewing its staffing levels as part of a management study.

"At the health district per se, we're not that shorthanded," Kwalick said. "We're looking at beefing up environmental health, and we're looking to add a satellite office in the west part of town in the Spring Mountain and Jones area."

The federal report revealed that local law enforcement agencies in Nevada were about 15 percent below the national average in police staffing, but more than 87 percent above average in positions filled by individuals without arrest powers.

Metro Police senior analyst Sandy McLaughlin said the state's largest law enforcement agency doesn't have the academy training capacity to keep up with population growth. That means the agency cannot get new officers on the streets fast enough.

Metro's large civilian staff dates back to the early 1970s, when city and county law enforcement agencies were consolidated. McLaughlin said Metro uses civilians for purposes such as communication and crime scene analysis, jobs that other police agencies give to commissioned officers.

"Civilians are less expensive to employ," McLaughlin said. "They're not eligible for early retirement like police officers. Any job you can give to a civilian frees up police to go after suspects, and that's a good thing."

Despite a reported shortage of nurses statewide, local governments in Nevada employed 26.1 hospital workers per 10,000 residents last year, nearly 42 percent above the national average of 18.4. Much of that has to do with the fact that county-funded University Medical Center, the state's second largest hospital, is one of the nation's largest public hospitals.

UMC spokesman Dale Pugh said the hospital enjoys low employee turnover and has not been as adversely impacted by the nursing shortage as is true of Nevada's privately owned medical facilities. The hospital has 14 UMC Quick Care clinics that treat 500,000 outpatients annually, runs the state's only burn care unit and has specialized centers for pregnant women and AIDS patients.

"This is a rapidly growing community, so the hospital has grown rapidly as well to keep up with the health needs of the community," Pugh said. "We have a medical school in Nevada and a lot of those professors are based at UMC. We also have residency training.

"A lot of times people forget how many people it takes to run the hospital. Nurses make up the bulk of our employees, but you also have engineers to keep the boilers and chillers working, a dietary department to make sure people get hot meals, people in receiving and workers doing the billing."

Somewhat puzzling in the federal report was the finding that Nevada local governments had nearly 66 percent more parks and recreation employees than the national per capita. Other studies have shown that Clark County is well below the national average in per capita park acreage.

Leslie Mihalko, spokeswoman for the county's Parks and Recreation Department, said she was perplexed by the Commerce Department finding. Whenever the department has opened new recreation centers, it often has to borrow employees from other areas, she said.

"We're struggling everywhere," Mihalko said. "We have some guys maintaining 60 to 70 acres of turf a week, which is unheard of."

The Commerce Department has been producing several reports based on 2000 Census information. Earlier this week the department ranked Nevada 47th in the percentage of residents 25 and older with a bachelor's degree, at 18.3 percent.

The report also ranked Nevada ninth in the percentage of residents who speak a language other than English (21.8 percent), 12th in median value of owner-occupied housing units ($140,880), 19th in median household income ($42,177) and 36th in percentage of people below the poverty level (10.1).

But this study was based on a sampling of only 700,000 U.S. households, including a mere 450 in Nevada, and had a margin of error far greater than that found in most public opinion polls.

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