Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Consolidating firefighters raises many questions

Regarding the article in Sunday’s Las Vegas Sun about consolidating firefighters under one elected fire chief:

Just what is it that consolidation brings to the table? Are we talking cost containment due to greater economy of scale, a stronger voting bloc to pander and leverage politicians or even less taxpayer visibility and managerial oversight? Maybe it’s all of the above.

I’m not sure how fire consolidation puts taxpayers in any better position when it comes to cost control. How would this change the current situation where some firefighters in Clark County, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas have combined compensation packages approaching that of U.S. senators (a few are nearly on par with the president)? Does consolidation mean better contract management and daily oversight or will this aspect become even more diffused? How do you legislate that?

I’m tired of hearing the inane argument from the collective bargaining leaders in Clark County that local government has far fewer employees per capita than almost anywhere else. So what? Is this a justification for hiring even more highly compensated workers? Perhaps public employees here are more productive because they use highly automated systems? Providing workers with state-of-the-art tools like computers makes sense; these devices don’t demand pensions or collective bargaining rights. Maybe we have fewer public employees because at their high compensation levels we can’t afford any more?

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