Pay raises for county officials could get new chance

Erin Neff

Monday, May 7, 2001 | 11:18 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Elected officials in each of Nevada's counties witnessed the death of their pay raises last month, when the Assembly quietly killed a bill calling for up to 39 percent salary hikes for some officials.

But if testimony Friday on a related item is an indication, the measure could be resurrected before the end of the session as an amendment to another bill.

When the Assembly Government Affairs Committee initially heard testimony about Assembly Bill 256 -- the salary hike bill -- lawmakers were unsettled over the discrepancy among counties. Clark County officials were set to get the biggest pay raises, with county commission salaries rising from $54,000 to $75,000 a year.

As a result, panel member Kathy Von Tobel, R-Las Vegas, recommended a resolution be drawn instead to amend the Nevada Constitution to allow county commissions to set the salaries for themselves and the county's other elected officials.

Currently, the Constitution mandates the Legislature set salaries for all county elected officials.

The resolution, Assembly Joint Resolution 14, must be passed this session and again in 2003 before voters are asked to approve the constitutional change in November 2003.

Carole Vilardo, president of the Nevada Taxpayers Association, testified Friday during a hearing on AJR14 that she supports the resolution, because "it's almost easier to amend the Constitution," she said, than to get county commissioners to raise their own salaries.

But, Vilardo warned, if the raise proposal is not resurrected during this session, county elected officials could go as many as nine years without a raise.

"Please look favorably upon it, even if you amend it down," Vilardo advised the committee.

Von Tobel said the resolution is important regardless of what the Legislature does to the original salary proposal. The counties could have taken the lead by asking for such a resolution years ago, she said.

"The county has been hesitant to do that because they don't want to set their own raise," Von Tobel said.

Roy Neighbors, D-Tonopah, agreed with Vilardo. He said passage of the resolution "doesn't mean that those elected officials' raises shouldn't go forward."

But Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, said he would not support the resolution if a back-room deal was being made to also grant the raises.

"I think it's sort of a hoodwink approach to pass this and amend the other one at the end of the Legislature," Williams said.

Williams suggested that salaries of county commissioners be excluded from the resolution, keeping the Legislature in charge of their pay, but leave the commissions in charge of salaries of the handful of other elected officials, such as district attorney, sheriff and county recorder.

But Carson City Clerk/Recorder Alan Glover said some elected county officials fear commissioners setting their salaries.

"If they set the salaries, it pressures us to accept their ideas," Glover said.

The committee took no vote Friday on the resolution.