Time, money cited in work card removal

Keith Paul and Adrienne Packer

Friday, Aug. 31, 2001 | 10:53 a.m.

Purging work card records of Clark County employees who no longer need the documents would be so time-consuming, it would take 10 full-time employees more than 14 years of work to accomplish the task, Metro officials said.

Deputy Chief Richard McKee is scheduled to appear before the Clark County Commission on Tuesday to deliver his estimate, describe the complicated process of deleting the records of hotel-casino employees and offer possible plans.

McKee said the possible plans he will deliver to the commission have not been finalized.

Metro officials would have to pull up more than 2.35 million work card records from their computer system to determine whether they were issued in the city or the county. Police suspect at least half -- 1.175 million -- of those would need to be removed.

The Clark County Liquor and Gaming Board recently amended the county's work card law, eliminating several positions including maids, bartenders and bellhops. Only employees with direct access to casino money are required to obtain the documents that show Metro has conducted a criminal background check.

The Las Vegas City Council also is considering amending its work card laws, but have not yet taken action.

McKee said the process is more complicated than simply pulling files and deleting them.

"We need to delete it from (the computer) then have the fingerprint card pulled and shredded and the (photograph) negative pulled and shredded," said McKee, who is head of the technical services division."But to truly expunge the records, we need to delete the microfilm record."

That means someone would have to load the correct spool of microfilm into a viewer, find the record, cut it out and then splice it back together, he said. Police have determined a total of 15 minutes would be needed to expunge each record entirely, with most of time coming from removing the information from the microfilm.

"We don't want to keep any information that we aren't entitled legally to maintain," McKee said. "The question becomes how much money it will be needed and do we want to spend that kind of taxpayer dollars?"

According to Clark County Commission chairman Dario Herrera, the answer is yes.

"I don't think you can put a price on privacy," Herrera said Thursday. "I think we should certainly consider every option, especially considering the amount of money and time it will take."

Herrera said the county should explore the most efficient method of expunging the records and begin the process. The Metro Police Fiscal Affairs Committee, which is made up of county and city officials, would have to find the money.

"I hope the city would join the county in eliminating the need for certain work cards and, in addition, they would help with the need to make sure records are destroyed in a very responsible manner," Herrera said.

McKee said the price would be about $5.87 million. The cost is based on the average records worker earning $15.79 an hour plus about another $4.25 an hour for benefits multiplied by the total hours worked in a work year -- 2,080 hours -- multiplied by the number of years needed to complete the records purge.

The problem comes that Metro Police doesn't have the workers to dedicate to purging the records. The records unit has about 120 employees, but they are charged with entering police and investigative reports into the system in time for suspects' court appearance in 72 hours after an arrest, McKee said.

"The real challenge is to find a cost effective way to carry this out," he said.

McKee said the 2.35 million records he is basing his estimate on, are not even all the work cards; those are only the documents that contain solely work card information. Other records include people who have a second entry -- whether it is a car accident or a criminal arrest or another reason -- in the statewide database known as SCOPE.

The county work card records are just a start, he said. "It also depends on what the City Council intends to do with work cards."

McKee also said Henderson and North Las Vegas have records of work cards that would not be included in the initial purging.

Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union said Clark County officials vowed to expunge all the records, and they should keep their word no matter what the cost.

"We appreciate the sheriff's comments to the effect he is saying he has no interest in retaining these files and believes they should be destroyed," Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said in reference to Metro's stance.

"We would like to see him and everyone involved follow through with their statements by actually destroying the documents."