BC might renegotiate union contracts to balance budget

By Cassie Tomlin (contact)

Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 | 10:20 p.m.

Boulder City hopes to spread employee pay increases for one year over the next two years and raise electric and water rates again in an effort to balance its budget for the upcoming year.

Labor is the city's biggest cost, at 70 percent of annual general fund expenditures, City Manager Vicki Mayes said.

The City Council at a special budget meeting Tuesday night voted unanimously to ask Mayes to look into union contract negotiations so it can reduce the budget for fiscal year 2010, which starts in July. If union leaders allow renegotiations for police, fire, electrical and clerical workers — those positions that are unionized — the change would ripple through other city jobs as well, Mayes said.

Police pay increases for next fiscal year are planned at 4.5 percent, fire at 5 percent, and electrical and clerical workers at 4.5 percent, she said.

The council also voted 4-1 to consider a 10 percent increase in water bills and a three-quarters of a cent per kilowatt hour increase in power bills. Councilwoman Linda Strickland voted no.

The changes would bring the city about $1.78 million annually, which would be used for $5 million in postponed sewer and water projects and its imminent $26 million bill to the Southern Nevada Water Authority for its share of the third pipeline into Lake Mead, Finance Director Timothy Inch said.

The higher electric rates would cost a larger home about $25 extra a month in the summer and a smaller home would pay an extra $15, Electric Utility Administrator Ned Shamo said. In the winter months, a larger home would see a jump of $10 to $12, and a smaller home would see $7 to $8, he said.

Residents already pay an extra $60 a year for sewer service, and water rates went up by about 10 percent, tiered so that heavier users paid more. An increase in last year's water and sewer rates, implemented in October, was expected to bring $750,000 to the city by next October for water and sewer capital projects.

Boulder City's current electric rates are about 40 percent of what the rest of the Las Vegas Valley pays, but they need to go up to compensate for future increased city power costs, Inch said.

The city expects NV Energy to raise Boulder City's wholesale electricity rate in six to eight months, Shamo said, and in 2017, the city's contracts for electricity from Hoover Dam expire.

The council will hold at least one more meeting before finalizing the 2010 budget in May, Mayes said.

The city's general fund balance should be about $3.4 million at the beginning of July, Mayes said, but she expects city expenses will be $1 million more than city revenues.

The council also voted unanimously to again reduce municipal golf course maintenance, increase user rates at the city's pool and Youth and Art Centers, reduce contracts with the state for city landscape maintenance and to maintain its current property tax revenue by increasing its property tax rate to make up for falling home values. Homeowners would see no dollar increase.

The city expects most homes' assessed property values to decrease by 10 percent this year, which would reduce its property tax revenue. To keep homeowners' bills and the city's income the same in 2010 as in 2009, it will consider increasing property tax by 3 percent, Inch said.

Places for the city to save money are getting harder to find, Mayes said.

The council voted against reducing parks and recreation programs, eliminating the Bootleg Canyon trailmaster position, cutting car allowances for city employees and reducing department head salaries by 15 percent or 10 percent, depending on how much the salary is.

Mayes this year eliminated "dramatically" part-time employees in Parks and Recreation, and adult and youth sports budgets, she said, saving at least $300,000 in the fiscal 2009 budget.

Mayor Roger Tobler said the city needs to consider its long-term sustainability in its decisions.

"Some very unpopular and difficult decisions will probably have to be made," he said.

Councilwoman Linda Strickland, who had pushed for department head salary cuts and eliminating car allowances, said the city needs to look out for families' quality of life first.

"I see all the little guys that do all of the work around our town being affected," she said. "I think our priorities are a little flipped."

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or cassie.tomlin@hbcpub.com.