County: Police funding won’t be cut

Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004 | 10:45 a.m.

The Clark County Commission moved Tuesday to reassure the public that the proposed a quarter-cent sales tax increase designed to pay for new police officers throughout the region will indeed be used to pay for more officers.

After the commission's 6-0 vote in favor of the resolution, Clark County Manager Thom Reilly said the move was needed because of confusion over whether the police departments would actually see money for new officers if the Legislature approves the sales tax increase.

"I think it was just a clarification," Reilly said. "The commission was consistent. The money can only be used to put new commissioned officers on the street, period.

"(Sheriff) Bill Young and I put this together given that there was confusion out there."

Clark County voters narrowly approved an advisory question Nov. 2 that would increase the total sales tax to 8 percent. The quarter-cent tax would go to police departments throughout Clark County, including Metro, on a formula based on population. The measure passed with just under 52 percent of the vote.

To take effect, the increase would have to be approved by the Legislature next year.

The measure is designed to increase the number of officers, but the concern by some is that local governments would fund a smaller percentage of their police departments, letting the sales tax measure take a share of the burden.

Young has estimated that the increased revenue in the first 10 years would be enough to hire about 1,300 officers for Metro's jurisdiction -- Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County -- 227 in Henderson, 151 in North Las Vegas, 16 in Boulder City and 14 in Mesquite.

In recent years Metro, the biggest police force in Nevada, has received less funding from the city of Las Vegas and Clark County than it has requested -- and the difference has often come out of the department's ability to hire new officers. The county this year contributed $151.9 million to Metro, or almost 60 percent of the funding for the department.

Assistant County Manager Catherine Cortez Masto told the commission that funding for Metro has increased at an average of almost 14 percent per year over the last decade while revenue available for such services has grown by 11 percent per year.

"Any funding generated from an increase in the sales tax in Clark County will be used solely for the purpose of hiring and equipping more police officers and will not be used to supplant or replace existing or future funding" from the county, she said. "The county will continue to provide budget increases (to Metro) to pay for items which are not eligible for funding under the proposed sales tax."

Those responsibilities would include salary and benefit increases resulting from the collective bargaining process with worker unions, the hiring of new civilian employees and increases in the cost of operating supplies, capital equipment and facilities.

Cortez Masto also said that with more police on the streets, the county-funded judicial system is likely to have a heavier burden as more police can be expected to send more people to jails and into the courts. The result would be "a strain on our existing criminal justice system," she said.

Reilly noted that with those costs would likely mean that the county's funding responsibilities would likely continue to increase, although the size of the increase is not yet known.

Elected and appointed officials from the area's cities also said they would expect to use any additional money to pay for new officers.

Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese, who also sits on Metro's Fiscal Affairs Board, said he fully supports using the additional money, if it comes, for adding officers. Reese also noted that the City Council supported the sheriff's request for additional funding to hire more officers earlier this year.

"I would love to see two officers in every police car," Reese said. "I think we really need this money from the state." Henderson City Manager Philip Speight said, "every bit of any extra money we received would go toward hiring additional police officers."

Boulder City Mayor Bob Ferraro said that if additional money would be used to add staff to the police department, which employs officers, dispatchers and school crossing guards.

North Las Vegas City Manager Gregory Rose said that while the city council there has passed a resolution similar to the county commission, the city has added police officers in recent years. If the funding comes, Rose said he intends to recommend the council increase staffing by 30 police officers and 10 administrative positions every two years.