Sunday, May 29, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Senate authorizes sales tax increase for police

Foes say bill waters down commitment that money goes for hiring more officers

CARSON CITY -- A bill authorizing a sales tax increase to hire more police in Southern Nevada won final approval in the Senate late Friday.

However, some lawmakers said senators removed accountability provisions from the measure.

Clark County lobbyists Dan Musgrove and Michael Alastuey disputed the contention that local governments won't be accountable for the money.

Assembly Bill 418 will go back to the Assembly, where Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, predicted Saturday the amended measure will be approved.

"I think from the very beginning all members of the Legislature wanted to make sure that the money went to cops on the street and that local governments would not take away money previously going to the police," Buckley said.

"We tried to put proper accountability measures in," she said. "The Assembly is pretty comfortable with the bill. We will concur."

Gov. Kenny Guinn has said he will sign the bill.

The final vote in the Senate was 16-5.

The five senators voting no were Bob Beers and Barbara Cegavske, both R-Las Vegas, Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, and Maurice Washington, R-Sparks.

The bill authorizes the Clark County Commission to increase the sales tax by a quarter cent to 7.75 percent on Oct. 1.

The next quarter cent increase would not take effect until 2009, and only then with legislative approval.

The money must be used exclusively to hire and equip more police in the Las Vegas police jurisdiction as well as Henderson, North Las Vegas, Mesquite and Boulder City.

Clark County voters in November passed by a 52 percent to 48 percent margin an advisory question to increase sales taxes by a half-cent to raise revenue to hire more police.

Cegavske, who earlier in the week amended the measure to ensure that sales tax revenues would be an augmentation to the current Southern Nevada police budgets, called the change to the bill "bait and switch."

"The people of Clark County voted to increase uniformed police officers by taxing themselves an additional quarter cent sales tax," she said. "This bill provides no assurance that will occur.

"Have you ever heard of bait and switch? Get your money for the police and spend it on something else."

Beers also spoke in opposition, saying future increases in police department budgets now can come from the sales tax increase, not traditional general fund revenues that typically are allocated each year to pay increased costs of law enforcement operations.

"They have said they won't do that, but then they took that language out of the bill this afternoon," he said.

Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, said she was voting for the increase despite the fact that voters approved the increase by only 891 votes in her district.

"We're not voting on a tax in this room right now," she said. "I'm more than willing to allow them (the Clark County Commission) to sit in that hot seat and talk to their constituents about raising taxes."

A majority of the Clark County Commission has indicated they will support the sales tax increase.

Alastuey said the requirement in the bill that existing local government commitments to police spending be maintained is a strong guarantee to taxpayers that the sales tax increase will be used to hire and equip new police officers.

"This is a level of commitment and guarantee that no government has in statute for any function," Alastuey said.

"The state does not dedicate in standing statute a specific amount for education, for higher education for Medicaid, for prisons, for anything."