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Cities, counties face job cuts
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PHOTOS By JESSICA EBELHAR/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
The Las Vegas Fire Department's heavy rescue unit sits inside Fire Station 44 on Tuesday. The Clark County Fire Department closed down its heavy rescue unit effective July 1 to save costs, and will call on the city's unit when needed under a cooperative agreement. » Buy this photo
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See the study, "Local Governments Cutting Jobs and Services."
Layoffs in Las Vegas, around nation
• Brevard County, Fla.
Plans to lay off 118 employees, a group that may include 31 sheriff’s deputies and a first-responder emergency medical program.
• Flint, Mich.
Cuts included the elimination of 23 of 88 firefighter positions and the closing of two fire stations.
• Fresno, Calif.
The 2010 budget includes 225 layoffs, including cuts in the police force, bus services and park maintenance.
• Dallas
500 employees are slated for layoffs, with the library system taking the biggest hit; services such as recreation centers and street cleaning will be reduced.
• Clark County
285 workers lost jobs in the past year, including 60 from University Medical Center. No firefighters were eliminated, but the county shut down its technical rescue and Hazmat teams and plans to eliminate a team in Laughlin.
• Las Vegas
Since January, 179 people have been let go at the city. No firefighter jobs were in peril, but several city marshal positions were on the block until labor concessions were achieved. According to a city spreadsheet, one marshal and two corrections officers were let go.
• North Las Vegas
The city passed a budget with 204 layoffs. They included 16 firefighters, but a labor deal saved those jobs, reducing the layoff figure to 188.
• Henderson
Two layoffs to date, although both people were later placed in different positions. Neither worked in public safety.
Sources: National League of Cities; Clark County; cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson
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Las Vegas firefighters, from left, Sarah McCrea, Capt. John Hurley, Andrew Osborn and Mark Duncan stand in front of the department's heavy rescue truck Tuesday. Since January, 179 people have been let go by city officials. No firefighter jobs were in peril, however.
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Jul. 28, 2010 | 9:07 a.m.
Nearly half a million city and county government jobs could be eliminated nationwide in the next two years because of budget shortfalls, a new study estimates while noting that the cuts would further worsen high unemployment numbers.
Southern Nevada's governments have felt the budget and employment crunch along with everyone else. Unlike many other cities and counties, though, cuts to public safety jobs largely have been avoided through labor concessions and reorganization.
Clark County, for example, moved administrative Fire Department employees to front-line fire suppression and emergency medical spots and closed its heavy rescue team, moving those firefighters to a relief staff to fill in for absent co-workers and cut overtime.
No fire positions were eliminated, but the county instituted more than 200 layoffs and left 1,200 positions vacant.
"That's a pretty scary number," county spokesman Erik Pappa said. "We've been trying to not have it affect our delivery of services. Obviously it's impossible to do that, but you try to make the cuts where you're going to minimize the impact on your citizens."
Increases in unemployment and drops in consumer spending and property values have led to plummeting public revenues, which force governments to balance budgets by cutting employees and services.
The cuts will affect "not only parks, libraries and public works projects, but also public safety, police and fire services," said Ron Loveridge, mayor of Riverside, Calif., and president of the National League of Cities.
"Cities are not only the engines of their local communities, they are also the backbone of their regional economies, where investments in infrastructure and services provide a platform for private sector investment."
Based on a survey of city and county governments, the National League of Cities concluded that local government cuts could reach 481,000 jobs.
In cities that responded to the survey, 63 percent reported making cuts in public safety positions, something that largely has been avoided in Southern Nevada. Sixty percent reported public works cuts, and 54 percent said parks and recreation personnel were axed.
For counties, cuts to public works, social services and public health were most common. The survey had 39 percent of counties saying public safety had been cut.
"The depth of the current downturn ... means that surprising numbers of cities and counties report cuts in public safety personnel," states a summary of the study, performed by the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. "For some communities, this means fire and police stations that are closed and the potential for reduced capacity to respond to emergencies."
While local entities have staved that off for now, next year might be a different story.
"The consensus over here is that this year was bad, but next year will be worse," Pappa said.
Government coffers will be among the last to benefit from any economic turnaround, and the county already has dipped into its reserves.
"Next year, we're looking at additional cuts, probably," Pappa said.
Las Vegas officials did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday, but city leaders have voiced the same concern.
Like the county and other local governments, Las Vegas has cut costs, service hours and services, provided retirement incentives, renegotiated labor deals, mothballed projects, held positions vacant and laid off employees to make ends meet this year only to look at a deeper deficit for next year's budget.
The authors used the survey to voice support for the Local Jobs for America Act, federal legislation that would allocate $75 billion over two years to local governments and community organizations to preserve or create jobs.
The bill now is parked in three House subcommittees.
Surveys were sent to cities with populations above 25,000 and counties with 100,000 or more people. There were responses from 214 cities and 56 counties. Clark County, Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas did not participate.
Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.
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Another way to save would be to force retire the guys who have 30 years on the force. Do you know how much longevity is paid to those guys who are making 100K at captain's pay, assuming they only work a couple of callbacks a year? Some guys are young and don't want to retire, so they stay on the force for up to 35 years, and still retire before they're 60. Do you realize if they make 100K, that at their 30th year, they get a bonus of $17K? OK, its a reward for loyalty, but let's cut it at 30 years and say thanks, goodbye, and promote some younger deserving guys up.
Ok, first, does Henderson have a haz Mat group now? I thought County FD responded to help HFD when needed. If CCFD doesn't have these services, what about the other areas that relied on them for help? Do we have to wait for LV FD to show up if something happens in the industrial areas like south of Lake Mead Dr? Will the city FD cover major problems down by Primm, at rollercoaster or a fuel spill on highway? How about Boulder City, Mountain's Edge or Southern Highland? How many lives will it cost us before we realize this isn't the ideal way to handle this situation? Maybe they could make all FD stations capable of handling most haz mat situations, so the public is safe? Might take more money up front to buy some equipment to cover other stations, but its not OT costs, and not making an over priced single station and giving select firefighters more money than others. IF HFD has a Haz Mat team, this could also help. But no one's said anything about them helping out. I can't imagine how scary it would be to be stuck in a high rise situation, or needing the technical team and having to wait the extra 20 minutes for them to show up cuz they're on the other side of town. What happens if the team is already busy and something else happens? I hope that just because they've taken the Haz Mat and Tech Team out, that CCFD has retained the equipment in case its ever needed. Even on the single emergency basis, it would be good to know they're available, like how you'd call a SWAT team that has the training and does the calls, but it might be made up of guys from different stations who choose to put in extra non-paid time to learn the training. You'd call guys who are off duty, and pay the OT, but only for the specialized call, which is not very often. Maybe you'd need to pay them for training though since a lot of guys get hurt during training, and they need to be covered for insurance reasons - workmen's comp.
lol, come spend one day. Las Vegas station 1 and Clark County station 18 are the busiest stations in the country. Come down, put on some turnouts, get blood on your skin, be a real man instead of a blogger. Come on down, we are very short handed.
The point is that the people paying for the services are tired of the profound image of today's firefighter. They are gym rats at work, host incredible department BBQ's, and have ridiculously ignorant wives that drive their large SUV's at autobahn speeds because, with their fireman decal on the rear window, will never get pulled over or ticketed. I don't care what these entitled people think - revamp the department, have some efficiency and humbleness injected into the philosophy of "public service" - and maybe you will have a winner. And by the way Mr. Firefighter, slow the wife down in the behemoth SUV - it is beyond asinine behavior (and unsafe - contradictory to what you preach).
If you have a heart attack and are in cardiac arrest in this valley, you are 440% more likely to survive if you are treated and transported by the fire department than the national average, yet local firefighters earn less per hour than the local garbage men. You people are so uninformed I don't even know where to begin. 75% retirement after 10 years......RALLY? Go down to the corner and buy a clue. Also, if the job is SOOOO easy, how come you carpers aren't signing up to be firefighters? Some of you people are real experts from the sidelines aren't you?
Serious -
Did you seriously just justify sleeping as working!
You are confusing being there with working. Working is what most people do when they go to work. 90 hours of being there is what you do!
serious. You dont work 90 hours a week. That's the problem, you "think" you're a sacrificing hero. Your on duty or station for perhaps 90 hours, but you dont "work" 90 hours.
How very "pious" of you.
Look at this way.If a fireman was cut that means $200,000 plus the city is saving on salary but one forgets it also saves the city $1,500,000 in pension one would get in 10 years at 75% of $200,000.Bell,Ca taxpayers are coming to Vegas and they plan on CLEANING HOUSE.CAN'T WAIT
Luigi, I am a fireman and even though I work 90 hours a week, I am still very motivated to do my job! By the way, 90 hours a week is three times the national average. If I only worked my regular 56 hours, then I would make my regular 56,000 a year. Economics 101, hire people, stop overtime.
Way to be fair Review Journal. I see that not only do you pick and choose the anti union stories to run, you also pick and choose only anti union comments. Keep up the good work. I picture you as th editor in the spider man movies. "It's not about the truth, it's about a good story!".