County agencies told to tighten belts

Stephen Curran

Wednesday, April 6, 2005 | 11:01 a.m.

Clark County can't afford even half as many new district court judges as experts say are necessary and has many other pressing funding dilemmas as well, including the need to add more staff at the overcrowded shelter for abused, neglected and abandoned children, the county manager said Tuesday.

Both of those problems are expected to be compounded by the expected addition of more police in the coming years because more police will mean more court cases, officials said. Clark County commissioners are anxiously awaiting a report that is to quantify the overall potential fiscal impact of adding more police officers.

"We need to know the whole story, not just the first chapter" regarding the way the expected influx of police will impact various other county operations, Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald said. "The jail is at full capacity today."

Southern Nevada's "justice community" will have to choose which of their proposals they can live without next year, commissioners and County Manager Thom Reilly said Tuesday.

For example, the county can afford to pay for three new district court judges, not the seven that the judicial system says are needed, County Manager Thom Reilly told commissioners.

Despite a budget expected to grow by almost 10 percent to $1.08 billion next year, the strain on the county's already-strapped resources is expected to grow, forcing agencies to prioritize the proposals they take before the commission.

The commission's request grew out of what had become an unwieldy process by which Metro Police, the Clark County District Attorney's office, public defender and detention center would present their own set of priorities to the commission, Commission Chairman Rory Reid said.

Representatives of various county departments and county-funded operations had come before the commission looking to create 600 new jobs needed to keep pace with growth, but the county can only afford to fund 100 of them, Reid and Reilly said.

"There's a constant tug and pull because there are a lot of needs and finite resources," Reid said. "We have to prioritize what to do and when."

Those agencies, who were notified of the request to prioritize by a letter within the past couple weeks, are expected to meet next week to streamline their proposals before presenting them at a later commission meeting, he said.

It's a shortfall that is unlikely to go away anytime soon, as population growth is expected to outpace incoming revenues. A property tax cap expected to be signed by Gov. Kenny Guinn would hamper long-term resources even further, although when or how significantly was unclear, George Stevens, the county's chief financial officer, said.

As it stands, property and sales taxes comprise roughly 70 percent of the county's general fund. The remainder comes from license and permit fees, Stevens said.

A cap will probably not affect the county's short-term finances, he said.

Meanwhile inadequate funds have already begun to take a toll on Child Haven, the children's shelter used by the county's Family Services Department, Reilly said.

"Legal action has been threatened' regarding Child Haven, he warned.

"We have a severe staffing issue at Child Haven that we are trying to address," Reilly said.

He said some of the problems are related to the "trouble transitioning" from a bifurcated state and county system to a solely county run system.

Reilly said the number of reports of abuse or neglect of children under three years of age "has skyrocketed" and that is the age of children "most at risk."

Between 2003 and 2004, the number of children living in the shelter because their homes were considered unsafe grew by 29 percent, according to the family services department.

Susan Klein-Rothschild, director of family services, said the growth in caseloads has caused what Klein-Rothschild called a "critical" need for more staffing. The department currently employs about 400 people, 85 of whom work at Child Haven, she said.

Even with those numbers, meeting the staffing ratios -- usually broken down to one worker to eight school-age children and one worker to every two to four for younger children -- is a challenge, Klein-Rothschild said.

"We're talking about something that has such significant impact," she said. "We don't have waiting lists. We can't do that. These kids need help now."

The concerns have prompted lawyers to begin looking into the department's staffing ratios, Klein-Rothschild said. No lawsuits have been filed, although she and others are in "dialogues" with the attorneys, she said.

"We hope to avoid a lawsuit," Klein-Rothschild said. "A lawsuit takes a great deal of money and resources. I would rather spend the money on the children."

Klein-Rothschild said she did not know what prompted the lawyers' involvement.

After the commission meeting, Boggs McDonald said the funding proposals, including those from police and the court system and those expected to come from family services, would be just the beginning of a give-and-take.

"It's not like we'll have one discussion and that's it," Boggs McDonald said. "We need to make sure we're allocating the money where it's needed."