Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

County union pitches cost savings to avoid layoffs

Beyond the Sun

The union representing county employees today made another pitch to county commissioners on how they could move around money and avoid layoffs.

For several months the Service Employees International Union has asked county leaders to be more creative in cutting costs and to raise revenue rather than laying off employees.

This time they came armed with the results of several focus groups, comprised of 150 employees from about 20 departments, recommending everything from alternate work schedules to reducing color printing.

No. 1 on the list remained the same as in previous pleas: tap the estimated $479 million in the capital improvement projects fund, known as Fund 437.

Those funds would cover the $9.3 million shortfall in social services and $4.6 million in family services, local union President Al Martinez told commissioners.

"We came here with a really important purpose -- to save social services and protect our kids," he said.

Only about half of the fund is dedicated to projects for the next five years and the union estimates the fund generated $39 million in interest alone last year, Martinez said.

Commissioners said they aren't sure the union's figures are accurate and asked their staff to prepare an audit of the account for an upcoming meeting.

Commissioners did voice support for trying to save the social programs that are on the chopping block but disagree with the union that they can raid the capital fund to solve the problems.

"Along with being a public agency and employing 11,000 people, we are mandated to provide sewer and water and roads and sidewalks and street lights and parks," Commissioner Larry Brown said. "The more we tap into that capital side of the function of a public agency, the more we're going to defer those and that's a dangerous precedent."

The county has been reluctant to siphon the funds to cover social services because of a state-imposed spending cap, Commission Chairman Rory Reid said. A state of emergency must exist before the county can exceed spending, legal counsel Mary-Anne Miller has said previously.

"We were told that it would not be legal for us to do some of the things that some of us wanted to do," Reid said.

However, a recent legal opinion from the Legislative Counsel Bureau said the cap doesn't apply to some of the spending the county has proposed cutting.

A review of approved capital projects is under way, County Manager Virginia Valentine said. The report is scheduled for the Sept. 1 meeting.

Many of the focus groups' other recommendations are under way, too, Valentine said, including extending the voluntary buyout program, containing discretionary spending and identifying core services to show how funds are spent.

"I think those efforts position us to explain and hopefully dispel the notion that Clark County has a lot of excessive revenue just lying around," she said.

Draining the fund could hurt the county's bond rating, which could cost the county more in the long run, Comptroller Ed Finger said.

Bond rating agencies recently upheld the county's ratings but warned that they are contingent upon the commission's continued cost-cutting, he said.

Fund 437 was created in the early 1980s as a "rainy day fund" to be used as a last resort.

The county should access the fund but spend the money prudently, Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said, because "once it's gone, it's gone."

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