In a city already suffering, North Las Vegas layoffs to hurt more

By Aida Ahmed

Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011 | 5:36 p.m.

Manuel Mecenas was employed by North Las Vegas for 20 years until he was laid off in May, a casualty of the city’s second round of layoffs this year.

As his family’s only provider, he was living paycheck to paycheck supporting his family on the $65,000-a-year salary he earned as the city’s maintenance crew leader. Now he says he is on the verge of losing his house because he hasn’t made a mortgage payment since he was let go.

If his wife and daughter didn’t qualify for food stamps, he says he doesn’t know what he would do.

“I’m 51 years old. Trying to get a job is almost impossible,” Mecenas said.

He said he’s wondering why members of the parks and recreation department working in the field were the first to go and “supervisors pushing pens” stayed on payroll.

With the decision made Wednesday by the North Las Vegas City Council to lay off 21 nonpublic safety employees and close recreation centers, more people once employed by the city will join Mecenas and the thousands of others in the Las Vegas Valley who are unemployed.

Teamsters Local 14 Secretary-Treasurer and CEO Larry Griffith criticized the council Wednesday night, blaming the city’s problems, including the impending closure of its recreation centers, on mismanagement of funds.

“Anybody can be a leader when the economy is good. What you have to do is be a leader when the economy is bad. You have to fix it,” Griffith said. “The Teamsters Union gave you back $17.7 million to save this city. We did that. We’d give you everything but our first born to save this city.”

The council voted 3-2, with Anita Wood and Robert Eliason voting against the motion, to move forward with layoffs to balance the $4.4 million budget shortfall.

The city must issue layoff notices by the week of Aug. 29 to nine employees in the Parks and Recreation division, three in administrative services and three in the city manager’s office, two in human resources, two in the office of the city attorney and one in public works, for a total of 21 employees.

Although Mayor Shari Buck voted in favor of the layoffs, she promised a room filled with angry citizens the city would find by Oct. 1 the $1.5 million to keep the recreation centers open. She blamed insufficient state consolidated tax distribution for landing the city in its current predicament.

Wood acknowledged that all the unions have negotiated with the city said but they must give more.

“When you have decreases in revenue, you decrease expenses, but you certainly don’t keep doing it by laying off and ultimately affecting services to our residents,” Wood said.

Teamsters 14 Vice President Steve Harvey said that in the last round of layoffs, the traffic division decreased from 32 workers to 15 and street cleaners went from 12 to two, lowering street cleaning to just 20 percent productivity.

The International Association of Firefighters and Firefighters Supervisors Local 1607 agreed to reduce base salaries for employees by 5 percent in June, a $1.65 million deal saving 35 jobs. The Police Supervisors Union said it gave up a 4 percent cost-of-living increase in 2009 and saved the city $1.5 million in 2010 when it raised police insurance co-pays.

The North Las Vegas Police and Police Supervisors union are in talks agree to concessions, deals Buck says will help the city greatly.