Metro budget poses tough choices for city

Judy Odierna

Thursday, April 3, 2003 | 11:07 a.m.

To provide Sheriff Bill Young with the Metro Police budget he wants, the Las Vegas City Council would have to cut other services and would have to add $2 million to what is already shaping up to be an $8 million shortfall, officials said Wednesday.

For the coming fiscal year, Young proposed a $358 million budget, a 12 percent increase compared with the current year. Young's budget would put 103 new Metro officers on the street and would add 38 more 911 call-takers.

"(We'd like to) give some increase, but how much can the city truly afford to give?" Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald said.

City officials say that early budget numbers indicate the city may see an $8 million shortfall this year and that number would increase to $10 million should the Metro budget be approved. The city's first budget workshop is April 23.

To give Young his budget the city would "have to cut new construction in every park in the high growth area, cut the entire code enforcement department," Boggs McDonald said.

Councilman Michael McDonald, a former Metro officer, said he'd rather see more cops on the street than have the city sending out newsletters or operating a television station.

Funding for Metro is divided between the city and the county. The division of costs is determined by a formula that takes into account population, calls for service, felonies and the proportional effect on Metro's costs.

The city contributes about $90 million annually to the Metro budget, while Clark County pays more than $120 million. Las Vegas will pay at least $630,000 more for police protection beginning July 1.

Young pitched his budget to the Clark County Commission on Tuesday and received no commitments from the commissioners.

Echoing his comments from the previous day, Young told the City Council, "I am committed to putting more officers out on the street. If we don't, then that's your call."

"You can't ask them to do more with less," McDonald said. "Every time there is a meeting that I have sat in, in every jurisdiction, the first issue is public safety. Shame on county officials that don't want to step up."

Boggs McDonald said she felt Young's case was compelling enough to be taken to the voters.

Young, however, said he doesn't feel a ballot initiative would do well in the current tough economic times, though he has not ruled it out.

"I have real uncertain feelings on a ballot initiative," he said, citing the city of Henderson's police department's failure to get voter approval on a similar ballot initiative two elections in a row.

Young said a bill in the Legislature by Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, that would take future property tax revenues from local governments and give them to the state could hurt the chances of a ballot initiative.

"It would make it virtually impossible if Raggio's bill passes," Young said.