Goodman defends city workers, budget concessions

If you're upset with public employees, don't take it out on the city of Las Vegas' workers, Mayor Oscar Goodman pleaded Thursday.

He said the city's employees have made sacrifices to help the city deal with plunging revenues caused by the economic downturn and shouldn't be lumped with others such as the Clark County firefighters, who are under scrutiny for possible sick leave and overtime abuses.

"I'm winding up my term. And I want the record to be straight," Goodman said. "I want the public to know that I feel that we've made great strides to address these issues."

The city's four bargaining units each agreed to contract concessions that included cuts to pay and benefits that helped stave off layoffs.

Overall, the city cut $100 million from operating expenses and eliminated 600 positions either through layoffs or by canceling vacant jobs.

At the management level, 25 percent of staff was eliminated and average compensation dropped 8 percent, said City Manager Betsy Fretwell. Even the city's Fire Department took a $10.5 million hit to its budget, but did not have to cut employees.

The city still expects a $10 million to $15 million shortfall in the coming budget year, but at one point officials were predicting a gap of $40 million to $50 million a year for the next five years.

No additional layoffs are expected, Fretwell said.

The city's general fund, which was once as large as $530 million a year, now stands at $450 million, the same as it was in 2005 -- when the city was smaller and had fewer parks, fire stations and community buildings to staff and maintain.

Don King, president of the Las Vegas City Employee Association, said his union -- the largest of the four -- took the brunt of the eliminated positions and layoffs, but the concessions spared even larger cuts.

"What we were able to accomplish in the concessions is proof that collective bargaining actually works, and it works in both directions," he said.