Pay hikes for DAs, sheriffs considered

Erin Neff

Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 | 11:06 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- State lawmakers are considering raising the salaries of sheriffs and district attorneys so those officials' pay would no longer be less than people who work under them.

Assembly Bill 23, sponsored by Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, would increase pay for district attorneys and sheriffs based on a per-county formula.

In Clark County the district attorney's salary would go from $100,800 to $155,744 per year while the sheriff's salary would rise from $88,000 to $134,262.

That would bring District Attorney David Roger, who took a $20,000 pay cut from his former deputy job when he was sworn in, closer to his assistants, who make more than him, according to testimony from Clark County District Attorney's office lobbyist Ben Graham.

Seventy employees in the Clark County district attorney's office make more than Roger.

"His two assistants make $57,000 a year more than the DA makes," Graham said.

Police provided similar testimony. Stan Olsen, a lobbyist for the Las Vegas Metro Police and the Nevada Sheriffs and Chiefs Association, said the increases were needed to re-establish a hierarchy of pay based on responsibility.

"In Clark County the sheriff has responsibility for 4,000 employees and makes less than the chief of Boulder City, who has 30 employees," he said.

The Nevada Constitution specifies that only the Legislature can set salaries for county elected officials.

During testimony on the bill Monday in the Assembly Government Affairs Committee, a freshman assemblyman, Ron Knecht, R-Carson City, initially recommended giving counties permission to raise the salaries before he learned that the constitution prohibited such an idea.

Two residents warned lawmakers that the bill would be an unfunded mandate.

"We are going through a financial crunch," said Carson City resident John Wagner, who is part of a grass-roots political group calling itself the Nevada Republican Assembly. "It doesn't look good to give big raises when the rest of the state is budgeting down."

Committee Chairman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, said he had similar concerns.

"My concern is about the big jump," Manendo said after the hearing. "Maybe we can somehow spread it out over the course of a few years. We have to be sensitive to the fact that the local governments have similar financial situations."

A related pay bill, Assembly Bill 66, was introduced by the committee Monday on behalf of the Nevada Association of Counties. That bill includes the same provisions for the sheriffs and district attorneys, but also raises the salaries of county commissioners and other elected county officials.

Perkins said he did not object to the district attorney and sheriff's raises being included in the other bill, but he added that it was questions about raises for other county officials that sank a similar bill in 2001.

"I didn't want to hold up the district attorneys and sheriffs," Perkins said.

AB66 would increase the salaries of Clark County commissioners, whose positions are considered part-time, from the current $54,000 to $80,558. Clark County's clerk, assessor, recorder, treasurer and public administrator, who are full time, would each be paid $115,584 annually instead of their current $72,000 salaries.

The bill is similar to the one proposed in 2001 but includes a 7 percent increase in the proposed salaries from that bill's request.