Friday, Feb. 11, 2005 | 9:50 a.m.
Clark County elected and staff leaders on Thursday identified key areas for the government's priorities in the coming year, but the issue of how much money there will be to pay for the work cast a shadow of uncertainty over the meeting.
The county commission, including Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who participated via telephone a week after going to the hospital with chest pains, wrestled with some of the issues that face the region. As it has in years past, growth and the strain it puts on the county's ability to deliver services took center stage. Finance Commissioner George Stevens told the commission that the answer to how much revenue the county will have to meet those demands depends on what the Legislature does over the coming weeks in Carson City. Stevens also took some time to respond to some political leaders in the Legislature who suggested that the way to control skyrocketing property taxes would be for local governments to reduce the tax rate.
Stevens pointed out that about a third of the tax rate is controlled by the county or other local government. To achieve a meaningful reduction, the county would have to essentially eliminate property tax revenue, which provides a third of local government operating revenue.
"You'd virtually have to wipe out the entire county-wide rate," he said.
County Manager Thom Reilly said the meeting to set priorities will have to be followed by meetings to discuss the budget realities. With the debate in Carson City over the property tax issue, the meetings on budget issues may be delayed.
Reilly said he'd like a resolution to the budget issue "the sooner the better."
"We will have to translate these priorities into budget priorities," he said.
Many of the priorities discussed Thursday at the special meeting of the commission, held at the Las Vegas Valley Water District offices, were familiar themes of years past: Better air quality, more efficient government and bring more state and federal funding for social services.
The Regional Justice Center, already years overdue, is taking in some offices and uses but is probably still two years from being fully complete because of numerous problems in the construction, Aviation Department Director and project leader Randy Walker told the commission.
Several new priorities emerged during the meeting. One was for more traffic lights to replace stop signs when warranted. County Public Works Traffic Management John Toth told commissioners that state law blocks the county from doing much of the work to replace the signs at four-way stops with new lights.
That means that contractors will continue to do much of the work unless the state law changes.
Toth said a revolving fund generated by developers fees could, however, expedite new traffic light installation.
Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald said such efforts have to be a priority for the county.
"We're waiting for available funds, and it could be another two or three years," she said. "To me it's scary."
Commissioner Tom Collins, who like Boggs McDonald was elected last November, said the cost for such lights should be borne by developers who bring the traffic.
"If you build on this corner, you're putting up the money for this light or whatever," he said.
Another issue related to public safety grabbed the attention of the commission. Collins was elected on a platform explicitly calling for more police.
His effort could get a boost from the Legislature, which must consider a taxpayer-endorsed request that would raise sales taxes in Clark County to pay for hundreds more police for Metro and the cities.
The problem, District Attorney David Roger and county staffers told the commission, is that more police can mean more arrests, more demand for district attorneys and public defenders, more jail cells and a cascade of county-funded needs.
Collins said that might not necessarily be the case.
"There's going to be less crime because they (the criminals) know there some cops in the neighborhoods," he said.
Boggs McDonald said that before the new police go on the streets, the county needs to study the eventual and complete fiscal impact.
"We need to come clean with the taxpayers in terms of what it means to put an additional police officer out there," she said.
Clark County Assistant County Manager Catherine Cortez Masto told the commissioners that such a study is already underway and should come back to the commission within the next two months.
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