LV council happy with cost cutting

Dan Kulin

Tuesday, May 3, 2005 | 9:45 a.m.

Las Vegas would add 58 jobs and cut nine, and the tax rate would remain the same under a $1.18 billion preliminary spending plan supported by the City Council on Monday.

A final council vote and public hearing on the budget for the 2005-2006 fiscal year is expected on May 17. The fiscal year begins July 1.

The tentative total budget for all city funds is about $100 million more than the total budget for the current fiscal year, and includes a general fund budget proposed to be about $482.9 million. The general fund, which pays for general government operations such as police and fire protection and parks and courts, is about $431.9 million for the current fiscal year.

Proposed increased spending includes about $23.4 million in new or additional personnel costs, such as $15.3 million in pay and benefit increases for union employees, and $3.6 million to fund 58 new positions.

The proposed new jobs include nine in field operations, which takes care of maintenance of city buildings and parks; the city taking over the cost of eight jobs affiliated with a city jobs program for ex-felons, which had been federally-funded; two new fire-code inspectors; two new city planners; a new criminal attorney position; and a third deputy city manager position.

The nine positions being eliminated, all of which are all not currently filled, include one council liaison -- City Councilman Steve Wolfson chose to have a staff of two instead of the three he's allowed -- a painter, a maintenance crew leader and three custodial positions.

The mayor and some City Council members lauded city staff for presenting a tentative budget that proposes increasing staff by less than 2 percent and leaves the city portion of the property tax rate at 67.65 cents per $100 of assessed value, which is lower than it was almost 12 years ago.

The city currently has about 2,913 positions.

The council also complimented City Manager Doug Selby for being able to save about $6 million in city funds through a variety of tactics including increasing the amount of federal grants coming to the city, switching park lands from grass to artificial turf, changing billing practices, and reducing overtime.

Mayor Oscar Goodman said it was "remarkable" city staff has been able to reduce costs in light of the dramatic population growth the city has seen in recent years. And to possibly increase that savings, Goodman suggested looking for opportunities to use college interns and turn more city operations into so-called enterprise funds, which theoretically are completely paid for with the fees collected for the services that operation provides.

Councilman Larry Brown complimented Selby for keeping increases in the size of the government relatively small, and working with a tax rate lower than it was in the 1994-1995 fiscal year.

As in previous years, the largest chunk of the city's general fund budget is proposed to go toward public safety. About 60 percent of the general fund would go to Metro Police, which would see an additional $10.1 million from the city in the coming year; the fire department; city marshals; the detention center; and code enforcement.