County approves $1.24B budget for cops, jails, family services

Clark County commissioners approved $1.242 billion in yearly spending Monday that will help hire dozens of new police officers while devoting more money to jails and adding jobs in the Department of Family Services.

The county also will fund two new positions, an investigator and a “compliance officer,” meant to prevent vulnerable adults from being abused in the guardianship system.

The county’s “general fund” spending for 2015-16 is projected to be up about $36 million, or 3 percent, over this fiscal year.

The Metropolitan Police Department’s overall spending, $539 million, is projected to be up 9 percent over this year’s $494 million. The county contributes less than half of that total, with the rest coming from the city of Las Vegas and Metro’s own revenue.

Metro has said it plans to add 55 new officers and 41 new civilians, helping it reopen four area commands that were closed to the public during the recession. The county’s portion of Metro spending is set to increase by $9.2 million.

The court system asked to hire a new investigator and compliance officer after a series of articles in the Review-Journal in April laid out abuses in Clark County’s guardianship system.

Some private court-appointed guardians stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the mentally incompetent, often elderly people they were hired — at public expense — to protect. And the court system failed to catch the problems because, among other problems, it didn’t follow a state law requiring a yearly accounting of how guardians were spending their wards’ money.

David Barker, the chief judge of Clark County District Court, told commissioners the compliance officer will deal directly with guardians and with anyone reporting concern about a guardian.

And Barker said he expects the hiring of an investigator to be recommended by a state commission on guardianship, whose members are expected to be appointed soon by the chief justice of the state Supreme Court. That commission should deliver recommendations in about six months.

The investigator won’t be hired unless the state commission recommends it. But Commissioner Larry Brown said setting money aside for the job now will speed the hiring process down the road.

With a projected Detention Center deficit, the county plans to spend an extra $20.5 million on jails next year. Officials have said they hope to save millions by cutting the jail population by 550 to 600 people while increasing the number of offenders on house arrest.

Spending will be cut in some areas. University Medical Center, the county’s public hospital, will need less county funding next year after two rounds of layoffs cut 400 jobs.

So the county will need $31 million from next year’s general fund to subsidize the hospital instead of this year’s $61 million.

On Monday, commissioners approved not only the county’s own budget, but about $5 billion in spending for other public agencies, including the medical center and McCarran International Airport.

Commissioners voted to add 60 new county jobs. County Manager Don Burnette said that’s about a 1 percent increase in the workforce, the same percentage that was added last year.

Noting the county lost about 20 percent of its workforce during the recession, Burnette told commissioners the small increases don’t come close to making up for what was lost.

“I wish we had more money available, because there’s clearly a lot more needs in the county that we weren’t able to address,” Burnette said.

Sixteen of the new jobs are related to the Department of Family Services, which has seen increased caseloads. The new jobs include two supervisors, three specialists, two deputy district attorneys and a DA’s office investigator.

Contact Eric Hartley at ehartley@reviewjournal.com or 702-550-9229. Find him on Twitter: @ethartley.