Columnist Jeff German: Room tax hike could fund cops

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 | 10:37 a.m.

With a 25 percent rise in crime in the past two years, the need for more cops on the streets of Las Vegas is pretty obvious.

But on the heels of an $833 million legislative tax hike, higher utility bills and soaring gasoline prices, how do we pay for the additional officers?

Sheriff Bill Young's answer is a sales tax increase that would raise roughly $50 million a year. If the voters approve his plan in November, Young will ask the Legislature to pass the tax hike.

This week the sheriff said he went the sales tax route because he was convinced it would spread the burden around and have the least impact on the public.

At a meeting of the Metro Police fiscal affairs committee, he said political advisers Sig Rogich, Billy Vassiliadis and Kent Oram told him that polls show homeowners won't support the other option he considered, a property tax hike.

A sales tax increase, Young said, would be easier for the public to swallow because a large portion would be absorbed by tourists on the Strip.

But it also would hit the majority of Las Vegans the hardest -- seniors on Social Security, working single parents with low incomes and even middle class families trying to meet the rising cost of living.

This kind of hike, which is paid equally by everyone, always costs the poor a lot more proportionally than the rich.

There is another option, one that Young and his team of political aces apparently didn't consider -- making the tourists, who also benefit from Metro's protection, foot the whole bill.

It turns out that we already have the perfect vehicle to put the burden of paying for more cops on the tourists.

We call it the room tax, which is set at 9 percent and brings in about $280 million a year. A little less than half of the $280 million funds the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which promotes fast-growing Las Vegas around the world, but the rest goes toward keeping up with the city's infrastructure.

The room tax hasn't been raised since 1991, primarily because influential tourism and casino industry leaders have opposed it. They have argued that raising room rates puts Las Vegas at a disadvantage in the country's competitive tourism market.

Lately, however, tourism here has been at the top of its game.

All we've been hearing about is company after company on the Strip announcing record profits. People are filling up jetliners and jamming the highways to get to Las Vegas. They aren't going to stay away because their hotel bill is a few bucks more.

Just a 1 percent hike in the room tax will bring in an additional $30 million a year, which would go a long way toward reaching the sheriff's goal of raising $50 million annually.

The problem is that Young and his casino-industry-tied political advisers don't like this idea. Neither do industry executives who, according to Young, have contributed the lion's share of the $700,000-plus the sheriff has raised to promote the November ballot question.

"I want a broad-based tax, and the broadest based tax I know is a sales tax," Young said. "Gaming already is paying it's fair share, in my opinion."

But if gaming is earning record profits and has the wherewithal to bankroll Young's ballot iniative, it also can afford a modest room tax hike.

That would make paying for more cops less painful for the rest of us.