Tuesday, March 25, 2003 | 10:48 a.m.
Sheriff Bill Young previously said Metro Police needed 389 new officers to keep up with growth in the Las Vegas Valley, but his scaled-back budget request, presented Monday, would pay for just 117 new officers.
The reduced staffing request is the major change in Young's revised $364 million proposed budget for the next fiscal year, which begins in July. Young's revised budget is 9 percent less than the $400 million budget he submitted to the fiscal affairs committee Feb. 24.
Officials with Las Vegas and Clark County, the entities that fund Metro, "say that at this point we can't fund these 389 positions, and we agree," Undersheriff Doug Gillespie said.
Young's revised budget retained his request for 30 more 911 operators and eight emergency dispatchers. Those additional positions would bring the number of 911 operators to 101 and the number of dispatchers to 86.
Metro received 3.2 million emergency calls for help in the past fiscal year. The total is expected to exceed 3.5 million in this fiscal year.
"It was very clear in (Young's) campaign that our ability to answer 911 calls in a timely manner is a priority," Gillespie said. "At this time, we are not willing to cut back on these positions."
But the Las Vegas City Council and the Clark County Commission may require Young to make more cuts to the Metro budget.
Young's latest proposal is still 14 percent more than the department's current budget. The department's budget increases over the past two years were smaller: It received a funding increase of 8.2 percent for the 2002-03 budget and 7.6 percent for the 2000-01 budget.
Las Vegas City Manager Doug Selby said funding Metro this time around will be a challenge.
Metro's revised request would mean the city would have to kick in $15 million extra, or 16 percent more than in the previous year.
"We are struggling with our budget without Metro's request," Selby said. "We don't question Metro's need, but our own departments need more than we can offer."
Clark County's contribution would be $143 million, which is 14 percent more than last fiscal year, according to Susan Laveway, assistant finance director for Clark County.
"The sheriff has been asked to present his proposal to the board and the board will be evaluating his request along with other competing needs of the county," she said.
Instead of endorsing the new, proposed budget Monday, Metro's fiscal affairs committee -- a financial oversight panel comprising one citizen, two City Council members and two county commissioners -- voted not to take action on it and instead decided that it needed to be sent to the City Council and County Commission for their consideration.
This is a departure from how Metro budgets are normally handled, Metro Budget Director Janelle Kraft said.
"We've always been able to get approval at the fiscal affairs level," Kraft said. "Because this was such a significant amount, the fiscal affairs committee decided the full board needed to look at it."
The County Commission and City Council are expected to begin their analysis the budget proposal next month, and a final budget is to be adopted before June.
Last fiscal year, Metro received funding to hire 70 new police officers, Gillespie said. While 117 is an improvement, he said the department has fallen behind on its goal of having 1.97 officers for every 1,000 residents. Currently, the ratio is 1.71 officers per 1,000 residents.
Young's next step may be to let voters decide in November 2004 whether to raise property taxes to provide money for Metro, Gillespie said.
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