North Las Vegas budget includes addition of 19 positions

North Las Vegas City Council members approved a budget Wednesday that adds 19 new positions to the city’s workforce.

The city planned to add positions to the current fiscal year’s budget, but opted out of doing so after the coronavirus pandemic forced governments to brace for economic disaster.

North Las Vegas had implemented a hiring freeze for noncritical positions and postponed projects to offset some of the fiscal impact of the pandemic.

Fiscal year 2022’s budget restores some of the positions and capital projects that were originally budgeted for the current fiscal year, the city said. The citywide budget includes a general fund of nearly $201 million.

Budgeted general fund expenses are about $26.5 million higher than projected revenues for next fiscal year, but that difference is being covered by reserves that were built up from implementing the hiring freeze and postponing maintenance and capital projects, the city said.

Still, services for residents were maintained throughout the pandemic, spokesman Patrick Walker said.

At the beginning of the pandemic, revenue projections through the end of fiscal year 2022 showed a shortfall of about $100 million, primarily due to a loss of consolidated tax, Finance Director William Harty said. Consolidated tax is largely made up of sales tax.

Now, officials are projecting a loss of about $44 million through the end of the next fiscal year.

Harty suspects federal stimulus money helped prop up the economy.

“Where we thought there would be a big drop in commerce, it wasn’t nearly as bad,” he said.

Contact Blake Apgar at bapgar@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5298. Follow @blakeapgar on Twitter.