North Las Vegas City Council delays employee buyout offer

By Jeff Pope

Thursday, May 7, 2009 | 12:05 a.m.

North Las Vegas City Council delayed its offer to employees for early buyouts for two weeks saying they needed more time to review the plan.

Mayor Michael Montandon objected to the delay because he said it would cause employees to hold off on their retirement plans.

Under the Nevada Public Employees’ Retirement System, workers are paid their retirement benefits based on 36 consecutive months of highest compensation.

Employees wanting to take advantage of a three paycheck month would need to retire by May 22 to receive their highest compensation.

The difference is waiting is calculating retirement benefits based on 79 paychecks instead of 78.

“Once we begin discussing this, we put this entire retirement program in limbo,” Montandon said. “While this is floating out there but not approved, we’re going to see a lot of career decisions made or not made while we’re waiting on this.”

Councilwoman Shari Buck said she felt the decision was being rushed without weighing the long-term impact on city services.

“I’d like more time than right now to make this decision to ask questions and find out really what the ramifications of this are,” she said.

City Manager Gregory Rose presented the buyout package to the council on Wednesday saying it could save the city an estimated $7.75 million in the upcoming fiscal year. The plan would have started on Friday and remained open for one month.

“The sooner that you implement it, the sooner that you could be realizing those savings,” Rose said.

The start date, window of opportunity to participate and length of service were discussed as possible changes.

The city offer is one week of salary for each year employed plus the city would pay full COBRA medical benefits for three months. The plan may only be offered to those with a minimum of five years employment with the city.

Positions vacated by employees taking the buyouts could remain open a while unless department managers deem them as “critical,” Rose said.

“I think all the positions that we have are needed. We’ll have to determine… if that position is critical and must be filled,” he said.

The retirement program is voluntary and participants have up to 45 days to review the documents before signing them, Human Resources Director Joyce Lira said.

Lira estimated that 10 percent of the 978 city employees with at least five years service would accept the buyout. Only a few would come from the police and fire departments, she said.

The average city employee has 11 years of service and earns a salary of $81,143. Total compensation with benefits is $123,900.

Based on that average, the city would pay each participating employee $41,560 thus retaining $82,340 in city coffers.

The council will review the plan at its May 20 meeting.