Editorial: Allow Metro to keep pace with growth

Friday, Jan. 9, 2004 | 9:01 a.m.

A year into his job as Clark County sheriff, Bill Young remains committed to a goal he expressed on the campaign trail. The goal is to substantially increase the Metro Police budget so that more officers can be hired. Young says public safety will be at risk if the police force remains stable while the population continues to soar. The police department's ranks have slipped to about 1.6 officers per 1,000 residents, while the national average is about 2.5. The local comparison worsens if the daily tally of visitors to Las Vegas -- 150,000 to 200,000 -- are counted along with the residents.

Young's first attempt to add officers went the normal route. He asked the city of Las Vegas and Clark County -- which comprise the Metro Police jurisdiction and jointly fund the department's budget -- to increase his budget by $400 million so that he could hire an additional 389 officers. The governments, citing other public needs and statutory caps on taxation, granted an increase sufficient to hire only 35 more officers.

If that rate of hiring were to continue every year, Metro would continue to lose ground, slipping to 1.5 officers per thousand and lower. We agree with Young that this would not be sensible. Crime is on the upswing and we are concerned about what the increased strain on Metro's resources would mean for response times, investigations and prevention programs. Additionally, Las Vegas now has to be prepared for terrorism, as evidenced over the holidays when every available Metro officer was needed in addition to the substantial federal and state support. In the coming years, if its officer ranks are not significantly increased, it will be hard for Metro to maintain that level of preparedness.

Young is thinking now of directly approaching the voters with a ballot question in November. He may ask them to support a guaranteed budget for Metro, or a separate taxing district for the department. Whether those are proper solutions remains to be debated. But he is right on the core issue -- crimping Metro's budget puts a crimp in public safety.