County cites Metro funding disparity, seeks bill for Legislature

Clark County commissioners decided Tuesday to ask state lawmakers order a study of the Metropolitan Police Department’s funding formula at the 2017 legislative session.

The county reports it funds about 63 percent of the police budget, while the city of Las Vegas covers closer to 37 percent.

The disparity is greater than in 1973, when the two governments consolidated their police forces and began splitting the cost of funding. Back then the split was closer to 52.5 percent and 47.5 percent.

Today, county commissioners say that while they pay a larger share of the Police Department’s funding they have not received a proportionate increase in officer manpower in neighborhoods and high-profile areas of the county such as the Las Vegas Strip.

“We’re subsidizing the city’s lower crime rates at the expense of our strip corridor and, more importantly, our unincorporated county residents,” commission Vice Chairman Larry Brown said. “There seems to be a disproportionate allocation of resources.”

The request for a state-sanctioned study into the funding formula was only one of four bill draft requests commissioners approved to include in their bill package due to the state’s Legislative Counsel Bureau on Sept. 1.

They also submitted bill draft requests for the state to give the county more authority in making sentencing recommendations for local convicts, to give county property owners more power to stop annexation of their land into cities, and to expand how the county can use funds set aside for indigent assistance.

Among the potential bill draft requests that commissioners scrapped: reducing property taxes for companies, seeking state assistance to replace voting machines, and banning the open carry of guns at Nevada’s four commercial service airports.

THE DETAILS

Commissioners and county staff said one proposed bill could help reduce overcrowding at the county jail.

The Nevada Department of Public Safety is responsible for investigating people convicted of felony or gross misdemeanors and submitting the resulting Presentence Investigation Reports to District Court judges for consideration during sentencing.

But the state agency’s average completion time on the reports is slower than the 45 days allowed by state law, and, as a result, convicts are staying longer than necessary in the already congested Clark County Detention Center.

Commissioners gave staff direction Tuesday to draft a proposed bill to shift responsibility for completing the reports for county convicts from the state to the county. The county already pays 70 percent of the state’s cost to create the reports.

Another proposed bill being sent to the Legislature would allow owners of property in Clark County to refuse to be annexed into the city of Las Vegas’ jurisdiction.

The county’s last proposed bill could free up more money in the budget’s general fund, according to commissioners.

That bill would ask the Legislature’s permission for the county to use some of its property tax revenue, already set aside for indigent assistance, in two new ways.

The first would be to use the funds to make payments to Medicaid’s Upper Payment Limit program. The federal government would make matching payments to the program.

The second use of the funds would be to buy, build and renovate public hospital facilities.

The county allocates about $54 million a year of property tax revenue for its indigent assistance fund, according to Chief Financial Officer Yolanda King. No new taxes would be levied under the proposed bill.

Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Find @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.