County OKs layoffs, still comes up $50 million short

By Joe Schoenmann

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 | 8:12 p.m.

Slashing almost $40 million, laying off 82 people and cutting 115 vacant positions in next year’s budget will still leave Clark County about $50 million short.

Clark County Commissioners on Tuesday directed county staff to make the cuts, with plans to absorb the additional $50 million over the next two years. The budget will be finalized in two weeks.

The cuts come with full knowledge that the county’s $1.2 billion general fund budget — that portion of the budget funded mostly through taxes — will be short heading into the next fiscal year beginning July 1.

If the entire $50 million deficit were taken care of strictly through layoffs, it would mean about 500 people would lose their jobs. But helping to offset the shortfall is the fact that the county will reduce contributions to the Southern Nevada Health District by $14 million and to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department by about $16 million.

This year, the county also expects to dip into its reserve fund, which stands at about $100 million. The problem with that is state statutes advise local governments to keep reserves of about 8 percent. So unless tax revenues increase in the next year, the county will have to cut even more to rebuild the reserve fund.

Much of the misery could still be avoided, however, if some $45 million in cuts being kicked around by the Legislature are reduced or eliminated by the end of the legislative session. Barring that, County Manager Don Burnette said, the county will have no choice “but to lay off even more employees” over the coming year.

“I don’t see how that helps any resident who relies upon us for critical public services,” he said.