Reilly seeks 2 percent pay hike

Friday, Aug. 1, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.

Salaries

--Without taking reduction into account: $176,000.

--With a raise of approximately 2 percent, which has been proposed: $174,520.

Clark County Manager Thom Reilly, who voluntarily took a pay cut last year, will ask the county commission to put some of that money back Tuesday.

Reilly, in his second year on the job, will receive his annual performance review at the regular meeting of the commission. The commissioners can reward his performance with a pay hike, and Reilly said this week that he is seeking an increase of approximately 2 percent in his pay.

That would bring his annual base pay from $171,000 to $174,520, still less than he made a year ago: At that time, Reilly, citing concerns over the county's financial situation, asked the county to cut his pay by $5,000. Before the cut, he made $176,000 annually.

Reilly said that the size of the proposed raise mirrors the consumer price index rise for the Western states.

Commissioners contacted Thursday gave high marks to Reilly and said the county manager, who took the job in July 2001, deserves the pay increase.

"I think Thom Reilly is doing an outstanding job," Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said. "I'm extremely satisfied. I think he's entitled to a raise."

How much Reilly should receive will have to be decided, probably in closed session during the Tuesday commission meeting, Woodbury said.

Commissioner Myrna Williams agreed with Woodbury.

"I think Thom has done an extraordinary job," she said.

Clark County Commission Chairwoman Mary Kincaid-Chauncey said she also believes a raise is fair, although she doesn't know what the final figure should be.

"He's done an excellent job," Kincaid-Chauncey said. "I think his management style is good. He meets with department heads and tries to find better ways to do things. Whenever somebody has a good idea, he is willing to listen to it.

"It seems like the county is running more smoothly."

Reilly, who took over the job after serving as administrative services director for the county, said his job is easier to do this year because the board members are less combative than in earlier years.

"The board I have is great to work for," he said. "Obviously there are policy disputes on policy issues, which everybody expects, but the personality conflicts aren't there."

The previous commission saw two of its more controversial members, Dario Herrera and Erin Kenny, replaced with freshmen Rory Reid and Mark James in January. While Reilly did not name the previous commissioners, he said today's commission is markedly different.

"There are policy differences, but it's not the personal attacks that were there prior," he said. "I don't see any of the personal animosity."

"I really enjoy the job, I enjoy the commission, and it's a challenge. I feel that I have a really good, open relationship with the commissioners, all seven of them."

For Tuesday's meeting, Reilly prepared a review of his performance based on criteria set by the board a year ago. The criteria were: service delivery, organizational management, commission support, community relations, intergovernmental relations, employee relations and professional skills.

He also outlined some of the significant challenges that the county has faced in the last year, and the county staff's response.

Among the accomplishments:

With or without a raise, Reilly's salary is in the middle of the pack for local government administrators. Former North Las Vegas City Manager Kurt Fritsch, who was fired by his board earlier this month, had an annual salary of $154,000.

Las Vegas City Manager Doug Selby makes $157,000, and Henderson City Manager Phil Speight has the highest annual salary with $185,000.

The national average for county manager salaries is just over $99,000, said Michele Frisby, spokeswoman for the International City/County Management Association. The average for the region known as the Intermountain West, which includes Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada, is $110,000 annually, Frisby said.

She cautioned that those figures include counties with much smaller populations and more limited responsibilities than Reilly has in Clark County.

Salaries are "all dependent on the complexity of the services offered," Frisby said.

Clark County, with about 10,000 employees and a $3.5 billion annual budget, is in Nevada second in size only to the state government, which has about a $6 billion annual budget including state and federal revenue sources.

Nevada's general fund budget for this biennium is $4.9 billion. That's the budget funded with tax revenue. If you add in federal funds and other money such as license fees, the total is $12 billion for the two years. There are about 16,700 state jobs and with the university and community college added in, the total is about 23,100.

The Clark County School District budget is $1.2 billion a year, and the city of Las Vegas' annual budget is about $850 million.

If Reilly receives a raise, the commissioners will be returning a favor they granted themselves last month. The commission voted to give its four senior members $4,500 more a year and set them up for additional raises every six months for the next three years.

By July 2005, the commissioners' base pay, which was $54,000 annually before the raise, will be $68,390. The raises affect Kincaid-Chauncey, Williams, Woodbury and Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson-Gates.

The commission decided that the three junior commissioners, Reid, James and Commissioner Chip Maxfield, will begin collecting the higher pay after they are re-elected. Maxfield is up for re-election in 2005. Reid and James face the voters again in 2007.

Woodbury said Reilly's situation does not really compare to the commissioners.

"It's totally different. The commissioners didn't get a raise in eight years," he said. "Ours is phased in in small increments. I don't plan on proposing that we phase Thom's raise in over three years."