Tuesday, March 11, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Several hours after sending Metro Police's request for $1.6 million more in funding to an arbitrator, the Las Vegas City Council reversed itself.
On the advice of its staff, the council opted not to challenge the state-mandated formula that led to the increase. Instead, it will fight to get more officers for troubled city neighborhoods when the budget comes up for approval this spring.
During the morning session of Monday's public meeting, the council voted 2-1 to not allocate the extra funds. Mayor Jan Laverty Jones and Councilman Gary Reese were in the majority; Councilman Arnie Adamsen opposed it and Councilmen Matt Callister and Michael McDonald were absent.
Jones said she voted against the request simply to draw attention to crime-infested areas she says need more policing.
The vote automatically sent the matter to an arbitrator for the first time in 16 years, but Jones asked for reconsideration during the afternoon session, where it passed 3-0.
The hike is based in part on an increase in reports of felony crimes in the city -- not necessarily arrests to solve them -- credited in part to city programs that got poorer communities more involved with reporting crimes.
Reese noted that if there were more police patrolling an area, the number of calls would decrease simply because of the extra law enforcement presence.
Jones also said that crime in areas such as Meadows Village had declined when there was a Metro bike patrol there. When it was pulled out, crime again rose, she said.
"I wouldn't mind paying $10 million more, if we were to get the fair share of the services," Jones said after the morning session, noting that her beef was with Metro's administration, not the street patrol officers.
"They tell me they'd like to help, but they can't," Jones said. "I have a problem with the administration when it doesn't put cops in crime-ridden areas."
That afternoon, at lunch, a senior staff member recommended to the mayor that it would better serve the city's interests to address the issue of more officers for city streets during the budget hearings than bogging down the funding formula phase.
The city is responsible for paying for 43 percent of Metro's funding, with Clark County paying the balance.
County Commissioner Myrna Williams, who sits on the Metro Fiscal Affairs Committee, said she was surprised by the city's earlier vote to reject the budget formula.
"This is based on statistics, not politics," Williams said. "That number from Metro is based on a formula that's been used for years."
Lois Roethel, comptroller for Metro, said after the morning session that the funding formula shared by the city and county is based on data from the prior calendar year's population, calls for service and felony crimes. Roethel noted that since the funding formula began in 1981, it has never been voted down.
Last year, there were 47,532 police responses to felonies in the county compared to 33,437 in the city. Combining all calls for police services, including those for misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors, the city had 232,825 responses last year compared to 229,303 for the county.
SUN REPORTERS Jeff Schweers and Cathy Scott contributed to this story.
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