Council finds soft spot for needy

By Joe Schoenmann (contact), Sam Skolnik (contact)

Friday, May 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Las Vegas City Council members soon may trade in a fraction of their “special events” budgets, typically spent on parties, luncheons and gifts, for something arguably much more important: subsidized meals for thousands of the city’s poorest seniors.

With the city facing budget cutbacks amid a countywide economic downturn, City Hall officials are looking at every agency for possible savings.

One area to be mostly spared, however, is the special events funding available to each council member and Mayor Oscar Goodman to help pay for community events, gatherings where items such as pencils, water bottles, candy bars and beach balls emblazoned with the elected officials’ names are sometimes given away.

Rather than eliminate the special events budget — which has come under criticism as campaign activities at taxpayer expense — officials plan to cut it only slightly.

City Finance Director Mark Vincent said he will likely recommend to the council this month that the special events budgets for Goodman and the six council members be cut from $35,000 each annually to about $30,000.

The money removed from the special events budgets would be diverted to the city’s Senior Meal Program, which for years has provided inexpensive lunches to seniors at some of the city’s community and senior centers.

The $46,000 meal program was on the chopping block because of the city’s tightening budget, Vincent said. Council members themselves came up with the idea to divert funds from their discretionary special events budgets to save the meals program, he said.

“The idea is that we’ve got to pay for this someplace,” Vincent said.

If the council and the mayor agree to cut a total of $35,000 from their special events budgets, city officials said, the remaining $11,000 needed to fully fund the Senior Meals Program could be found relatively easily.

The Sun reported in January that council members had spent more than $190,000 of taxpayer money on special events during the previous 18 months.

Ethics experts and taxpayer advocates have cautioned that these “special events” — which have ranged from holiday dinners to community center grand openings — could be used as political efforts to boost future reelection campaigns rather than governmental or constituent service.

Critics also have taken the council to task for the amount of money spent on these events, noting that Clark County commissioners are allocated just $15,000 for them. Moreover, with the dollars often paying for balloon artists, disc jockeys and other entertainment at community events, some argue that the funds would be better spent on essential city services.

Until July, the city’s special events spending was handled by the Leisure Services Department. That month, the city changed how such events were tracked, and capped the annual amount each council member and the mayor could spend on special events at $35,000 each. Previously, there was no ceiling on that spending.

From July 2006 through October 2007 three council members — Steve Ross, Gary Reese and Lois Tarkanian — spent from $47,327 from $59,312. Others, including Goodman, spent more modest amounts, from $1,935 to $18,190.

Council members have defended the special events budgets, saying they’re a valuable means of connecting with constituents.

“I don’t think it’s totally expendable,” Tarkanian said. “You need things that spark people, get them going. We feel it’s a public service.”

Tarkanian spent $47,327 on special events during the 16-month period examined by the Sun, the third-highest amount among council members, on special events that included a “Bike Rodeo” for children and teens, in which police officers demonstrated bike safety techniques, and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners she hosted for some of her poorer constituents.

Although council members by and large defend their special events budgets, they said they’re happy to have that funding reduced to help poor seniors.

“We have seniors in this community who lack appropriate medical treatment as well as food,” said Councilman Ricki Barlow, who added that several Ward 5 constituents have told him the subsidized lunches paid for by the Senior Meal Program often are their only hot meal of the day.

As for reducing the special events budget to help pay for the meals program, Barlow said: “I not only think it’s wise, I think it’s a moral and ethical obligation.”

Reese agreed.

“I certainly believe we have to keep these nutritional meals for seniors,” he said. “Everybody who uses the nutritional lunch program really needs it.”

Since 2004 the meal program has provided subsidized daily $2 lunches for seniors at the East Las Vegas Community Center and the Doolittle Senior Center, which is being renovated. At the Las Vegas Senior Center on East Bonanza, the program has sponsored hamburger meals every Tuesday.

But, echoing the sentiments of his colleagues, Reese said he does not think it would be advisable to eliminate the special funding, even to make a move that would be both symbolic and substantive in tough budgetary times.

“It’s important that we’re able to do those things that we have in our wards and stuff,” Reese said.