Police forces counting on sales tax hike

Jen Lawson

Tuesday, May 25, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.

Metro Police along with the Henderson, North Las Vegas, Boulder City and Mesquite police departments stand to receive funding for 1,686 additional officers if voters approve a ballot question to raise the sales tax in Clark County, officials said.

The new officers would be hired over the course of 10 years, Metro budget director Janelle Kraft said.

Metro would be able to hire 1,278 officers, Henderson would get 227, North Las Vegas would get 151, Boulder City would get 16 and Mesquite would get 14, Kraft said.

Metro's fiscal affairs committee, comprised of city and county officials who oversee the department's finances, on Monday voted 3-1 to ask the Clark County Commission to let voters say in November whether they want sales taxes increased to pay for more police officers.

If the initiative passes, next year Sheriff Bill Young will ask the Legislature to authorize the county commission to increase the sales tax in Clark County.

Currently at 7.5 cents per dollar, the sales tax countywide would be increased by a quarter of a percent -- to 7.75 percent -- for four years beginning in July 2005, under Young's proposal.

In the fifth year, 2010, the tax would go up another quarter-cent to 8 cents on the dollar and would remain at that level indefinitely.

The increase would cost the average Clark County citizen about $12.50 a year in each of the next four years and about $25 annually after it bumps up in the fifth year, Young estimated.

Officials with the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce said Monday afternoon that they did not yet have a position on the proposal because they hadn't had a chance to study it.

The sales tax increase would be good news for other local police departments, where the officer-to-resident ratios are below Metro's.

Metro has 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, while North Las Vegas has 1.4 officers per 1,000 residents and Henderson has 1.15. The national average is 2.5 officers per 1,000 people, but in western states the ratio is typically 1.6 to 2 officers per 1,000, officials said.

Officer Tim Bedwell, spokesman for the North Las Vegas police, said the department's goal is to have 1.82 officers per 1,000 residents within 20 years.

"We definitely need more officers to keep up with growth," Bedwell said. "I'm not going to say we can't do the job (at the current staffing level) but we could do it in a safer, more efficient manner with more staff."

The funds generated from the increased sales tax would probably be divided among the five police departments based on population, Kraft said.

"We have not made that determination yet," she said, adding that if it passes, "all the agencies will get together and decide how to best allocate it."

By using sales tax, the burden doesn't rest completely on residents; tourists would shoulder some of it, Young said.

Political strategists Kent Oram, Sig Rogich and Billy Vassiliadis recommended to Young that a sales tax hike would have a better chance of passing than a property tax increase.

Voters in Henderson voted against a property tax increase in 2000 and 2001, and Young said Monday that the chances of such a measure being approved by voters countywide was "nil."

"You have a very good chance of voters passing this on sales tax," Young told the fiscal affairs committee.

An efficiency study that Young requested last year, which he planned to use to help convince the public to vote in favor of more cops, was released Monday.

Matrix Consulting Group of Palo Alto, Calif., conducted the four-month-long study and in the end delivered a 334-page report.

Matrix representatives interviewed more than 250 employees and looked at hundreds of aspects of the department's functions, including staffing, management, finances and productivity.

Richard Brady, president of Matrix Consulting, presented an overview of the results Monday to the fiscal affairs committee.

Metro currently has 2,964 officers, not including those stationed at the Clark County Detention Center and McCarran International Airport.

The study indicates that Metro will need 875 additional officers by 2014.

Since 1999, the number of Metro officers has increased by 21 percent, or about 5.3 percent annually, the study shows. Civilian staff has grown by 29 percent since 1999.

During the same period, the population in Metro's jurisdiction has grown more than 20 percent and the calls for service have increased by 21 percent.

At the same time, major crimes such as homicides, rapes and robberies have jumped by 39.5 percent since 1999, the report noted.

The study concludes that while staffing levels have kept pace with calls for service, the significant growth in serious crime "raises issues about the ability of the department to proactively anticipate or otherwise suppress crimes."

Brady told the fiscal affairs committee that "the regular patrol officer is essentially operating without any proactivity at all" because all of the officer's time is spent responding to calls for service.

The study, commissioned by Metro, also singles out 41 notable strengths in the department, including: a lean top management group; state-of-the-art technologies in forensics; a new radio system and the use of geographic information systems to aid in the deployment of resources; well-crafted policies; and a rate of answering 91 percent of its 911 calls within 10 seconds.

The study points out more than 100 areas the department can improve.

For example, the department needs an overall upgrade of its computer technology, 34 additional detectives should be added to the property crime section, 13 domestic violence detectives should be added, and the patrol division's weekly schedules should be switched from four 10-hour shifts to five 8-hour shifts.