Tuesday, May 19, 2020 | 3:11 p.m.
Clark County will make significant cuts to capital projects, Metro Police and funding for the University Medical Center as part of a $1.28 billion budget approved today.
The county had to slash its expenditures by $165.5 million as revenue streams from room tax, gaming licenses, business licenses, consolidated tax and service charges will decline because of the coronavirus crisis. Over the next 16 months, county officials project a $1 billion loss in revenue.
The budget was balanced through cuts toward employee concessions and taking $77.4 million from the general fund and town fund balance, Chief Financial Officer Jessica Colvin said.
The county will save $42.8 million with cuts in contributions to the Clark County Detention Center, Metro and UMC. The elimination of capital contributions and postemployment benefits help contribute to another $61.4 million in savings.
Mason VanHouweling, CEO of UMC, said the hospital was financially above water before the pandemic, but endured a significant decline in mid-March when residents needed to delay surgeries and procedures because of the virus.
“The hospital really became a ghost town at that point,” he said. “We were purely taking care of COVID-19 patients in our ICUs and in our emergency departments, we did a big ramp-up of our PPE.”
The hospital census is down 60%, VanHouweling added, even though nonelective surgeries reconvened May 4.
“It’s slowly coming back but we’re testing every patient that’s coming in,” he said. “Business has been severely impacted not only at UMC but to all hospitals throughout the entire state and country.”
Child welfare funding in Clark County is also facing a $19.5 million structural deficit.
“If it hadn’t been for COVID-19, the focus of our budget this year was going to be for child welfare,” Colvin said. “We still have that problem going into the FY21 budget. It’s especially concerning because we rely heavily on a state block grant to fund child welfare, and the state is also facing budgetary cuts that will likely impact these services.”
Clark County officials hope to save $58.4 million in cuts to executive, management and employee concessions, and another $14 million through a hiring freeze as well as voluntary furlough and separation programs.
These voluntary programs, which were each approved today by commissioners, were also utilized during the Great Recession more than a decade ago. Through the furlough program, the county manager may allow up to 40 hours of unpaid voluntary furlough leave per employee each pay period. Employees will still keep benefits during furlough.
Employees who qualify for the voluntary separation program can receive compensation for one week of pay for every two years of service, for a maximum of 15 weeks of compensation.
“The use of these one-time resources will get us through what we hope is a temporary economic crisis, however if the FY21 general fund revenues do not increase over the FY21 budgeted revenues, FY22 expenditures will need to be reduced by at least $148.4 million,” Colvin said.
CARES funds
The county also approved distribution of $295 million from the federal CARES Act for coronavirus relief efforts.
Staff estimates a total of $448.3 million in coronavirus-related costs in Clark County. Colvin said the staff is also pursuing grant money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The county will allocate $9 million toward cities like Henderson and North Las Vegas to reimburse them for COVID-19 costs.
About $21.3 million is slated toward coordinated testing sites throughout the county. Another $13 million will go toward personal protective equipment.
Human service programs like the ISO-Q homeless complex and other emergency shelters will receive more than $121 million.
The county will reconvene in a future meeting to further discuss how funds will be used in each of these categories.
