County OKs budget, job cuts

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

The Clark County Commission passed a record $948.4 million budget Tuesday, the largest in the county's history.

Although commission members OK'd the almost-billion-dollar budget, up 8.6 percent since last year, they also followed County Manager Thom Reilly's recommendation and sacked 20 managers, a move that Reilly said was needed to free up $2.4 million to hire 40 "front line" employees working directly with the public.

Those managers should leave their old jobs by June 30, Reilly told the commission. They can either apply for new or vacant positions or take a severance package, he said.

Reilly said revenue growth of 9.4 percent should allow the county to hire staff for another 69 new positions, for a total of 109.

The number is far more than the four new positions the county opened up last year or the 50 average positions the county has opened over the last five years, but still short of the 383 positions department leaders said they needed, Reilly said.

Almost all of the new positions will go to public safety, criminal justice and child protective services needs, he said.

"There are scarce resources, and there are difficult decisions on how we prioritize those resources," Reilly said.

Reilly told the board that the management cuts were "an extremely difficult exercise." He said the cuts targeted functions and not individuals.

"We worked closely with the district attorney's office to develop a program that treated everyone fairly," Reilly said.

Deputy District Attorney Mary Miller, the county counsel, said the county took care to ensure that "no gender or ethnic background was affected disproportionately" with the job cuts.

The cuts still stung the individuals directly affected and their staffs. One county Public Works Department employee asked the commission to reconsider cutting Nalliah Rajah's $97,000-a-year position as a manager in the department.

The appeal was the only direct appeal to the commission. Reilly explained that the cuts did not require County Commission approval, although the creation of the new positions did require and receive that approval.

Fran Boyette, who received $94,000 a year as a customer service manager in the county's Information Technology Department, attended the meeting. Her job is one of the 20 targeted for elimination.

Boyette said she is five months from retirement. Although she could apply for a new position at a reduced salary, she is not sure if doing so would make sense. Boyette said she is concerned that working at a lower level could affect her retirement benefits. Boyette said she learned that her job would be cut in a surprise Wednesday morning meeting. The day before, she had been in Elko on a business trip.

Boyette said she believes that the county can achieve savings by consolidating management positions, but the county's top brass failed to consider individual circumstances.

"The issue for me was that there was no willingness to look at where I was," she said, referring to her imminent retirement. "I would expect an opportunity to finalize my plans. There are plenty of people who would have been willing to work with the county.

"I don't want to be a troublemaker... I am looking at my options," she said. "I don't want to burn bridges, but they put you between a rock and a hard place."

Reilly and Finance Director George Stevens returned to well-traveled ground while describing the long-term financial situation of the county to the commission. The pair have argued that the growth in rank-and-file salaries has exceeded the wage growth in the private sector and inflation, and has undermined the ability to create new positions to serve the rapidly growing county population.

The average number of full-time employees or their equivalents has dropped from 3.4 employees per 1,000 people in the county in 1995 to 2.6 employees today, Reilly said. To keep pace with the population growth, the county would have to add 200 new positions this year, double what was adopted Monday.

Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who was appointed to the position two months ago, agreed.

"I really think we're at that crossroads," she said. "In no circumstances can we justify in the future .... exceeding the C.P.I. (consumer price index of inflation) for the western states."

She said growth in wages threatens all services provided by the county, which range from fire protection to foster-care services for young people.

"Tomorrow it might be a major reduction in force for the total county organization," Boggs McDonald said. She suggested that the county should go to the Legislature next year and seek some relief from the long-term problem.

Boggs McDonald said she is not attacking collective bargaining, nor the contract in place with more than 5,000 county workers. She said she has met with the union leadership and they appear to understand the ramifications of a failure to act.

"What's been negotiated has been negotiated," she said. "I think we have to sit at the table together and come up with a long-term solution."

A first step towards addressing the wage-and-salary growth issue will be to keep management salaries within the inflation index, she said.

"We only have 'X' amount of dollars," Boggs McDonald said. "If we continue to grow at this pace, we are going to be faced with the prospect of cuts.

Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates said that in light of the fact that most of the new positions and a growing portion of the county's budget is going to public safety, courts and related issues, the state needs to consider taking over those responsibilities.

Commission Chairman Chip Maxfield echoed those sentiments. Commissioner Rory Reid noted that "the entire justice system has more needs," and he said the county needs to move beyond looking at the budget needs of the courts, the police, the public defenders and district attorneys

Union members attended the budget hearing, and struck a positive note on the outcome.

"What they did today was a step in the right direction," said Chris Salm, research director for the Service Employees International Local 1107, which represents the county workers. Salm said the opening of new positions will ease overworked county employees.

However, the union and county management still have fundamental differences over the budget. Salm and other union leaders fear an effort to end collective bargaining for local government workers could be the end result of the clash.