County looking into stricter residency requirements for employees

By Joe Schoenmann

Tuesday, May 4, 2010 | 2 a.m.

One hundred twenty-three Clark County employees live outside its borders. Most reside within driving distance of their jobs, in Arizona and Utah, but others live as far away as San Francisco, Carson City and Texas. Now, as county officials scrutinize their payroll in light of a looming budget shortfall, the out-of-county employees have caught the eye of at least one commissioner who wants to require all county employees to live here.

Commissioner Steve Sisolak says government employees should have a stake in the community that employs them for financial and less tangible reasons. To that end, he will talk about stricter residency requirements for the county’s 11,000 employees during today’s County Commission meeting.

“I don’t see how they really develop a sense of community, how they feel part of the community when they don’t live here,” he said. “We need people who are investing their lives in the county.”

Also, with the county struggling to maintain services, the county could gain a bit more property tax revenue by forcing employees to move here, he said.

In 2007, the Clark County Commission passed an ordinance prohibiting employees from living outside the county, but it made exceptions for those who work in Laughlin and grandfathered in any employees living outside the county at the time.

Sisolak’s proposal would eliminate the Laughlin exemption and force employees living outside the county to move here or find another job.

None of Nevada’s counties has a residency requirement as encompassing as the one Sisolak proposes, said Jeffrey Fontaine, executive director of the Nevada Association of Counties.

Governments elsewhere are taking different approaches to the issue.

A New Jersey bill would require all public employees — state, county, municipal and including those on boards, commissions and working in a university setting — to live in-state. It would give those living outside the state 2 1/2 years to move; new employees would have to move in-state within four months.

Heading the opposite direction is Chicago, where the Illinois Legislature eliminated a teacher residency requirement that has been on the books for decades. Those opposed to the change echoed Sisolak’s arguments: Living within the community you serve demonstrates an investment; and allowing employees to move out of the city would cause property tax revenue to fall.

The county adopted its current residency requirement with the backing of Commissioners Chris Giunchigliani and Tom Collins. Asked if she would support tougher residency requirements, Giunchigliani said she would need to study the plan more closely. Collins could not be reached for comment.

Of the 123 employees living outside Clark County, 40 live in Arizona, 19 in Utah, two in California and two in Texas.

County staff said one of the Californians is close to leaving his county job. One of the Texans is temporarily assigned there for military obligations and the other is close to finding a job there.

The Carson City resident is a firefighter. And the San Francisco resident is a nurse at University Medical Center.

Many of the Arizona residents work in county offices in Laughlin; Bullhead City, where most of them live, is just across the Colorado River.

Salary and benefits for the county employees who don’t live here totaled $9.1 million. (Totals for eight Water Reclamation District employees were unavailable.)

Their average compensation, excluding taxpayer contributions to retirement benefits, was $86,000.

However, about 30 firefighters living outside county lines averaged substantially higher salary and benefits, $149,500. The average for all other employees for whom figures were available was about $57,000 a year.

The number of employees living elsewhere does not include Metro Police. Though Clark County shares funding of Metro with Las Vegas, police department employees are not considered county employees and are not bound by the residency requirement, according to Mary-Ann Miller, attorney for the commission.

A Metro spokeswoman said 55 of the department’s several thousand employees live outside the county.