Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Extra $15 million to be added to new budget

Las Vegas is adding about $15 million to its general fund budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

The money, which comes from the current fiscal year's fund balance, is to be used to help cover the cost of construction projects including the rebuilding of Fire Station 8, Ed Fountain Park and the Mirabelli Community Center, several parks, a records storage facility and the Washington-Buffalo soccer complex, officials said.

Although the $15 million was a welcome addition to the coming year's budget, it was less than the amounts the city has been able to add in previous years. The city was able to augment the 2001-2002 general fund budget with $21 million and the prior fiscal year's augmentation was $17 million, Finance and Budget Services Director Mark Vincent said.

"In the five years I have been here, there generally has been a 4 to 6 percent augmentation of the general fund budget each year," Vincent said.

Last year the budget was increased from $334 million to $355 million in the waning months. This year the Finance Department had the City Council increase the general fund to $426.99 million. It had been $411.99 million.

The money to augment the budget comes from the previous fiscal year's end-of-year balance, which from year-to-year generally runs about 12 percent of the total budget, Vincent said.

Before the June 30 end of the fiscal year, the City Council is required to pass a resolution on the augmentation and file it with the Nevada Department of Taxation. That resolution on Wednesday was delayed until the June 18 meeting because some of the paperwork supporting the need for allocating the extra money was not ready, Vincent said.

The $15 million for this year's augmentation is the result of give-and-take between departments and funds, with the biggest taker being the capital projects fund, which will receive $14.7 million to augment its $2 million start-of-year budget. Also, under the proposal, the debt service fund will receive $3.9 million to augment its $6.7 million budget.

However, in most cases, smaller sums of money are shuffled among various categories of the budget, from departments or funds that have extra money left over to those that don't have enough money.

For example, $2.8 million will be taken from the city attorney's $6 million budget and $100,000 from the City Council's $2.6 million budget, but $2.9 million will be added to the $12.25 million cost of utilities and $120,000 will be added to the $2 million city clerk's budget under general government.

The Municipal Court will have $1.2 million taken from its $13.6 million budget. But the City Attorney Criminal Division, which had a zero budget at the start of fiscal 2003, will receive $2.7 million, a direct transfer from the city attorney's general government budget, according to the augmentation documents.

The city's $89.8 million allocation for Metro Police is shrinking by $750,000. But the city's fire department will get $5 million added to its $66.6 million budget and Detention, and Correctional Services will get $2.1 million added to its $25.4 million budget. Most of that additional money is needed for overtime pay, Vincent said.

To help offset the costs of building new parks, culture and recreation will do with less money in several areas with $1.1 million taken from the $12.8 million recreation budget, $500,000 from the $11.8 million parks and open spaces budget and $200,000 from the $5.1 million cultural and community affairs budget. However, senior services will get $50,000 added to its $2.1 million budget, according to the augmentation proposal.

Transportation services will get $50,000 added to its $1.1 million budget, under the augmentation plan.

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