Henderson to close City Hall on Fridays to cut costs

Henderson City Hall will close on Fridays under a new cost-cutting plan set to take effect within the next two to three months.

The city has operated on a four-day work week since 1983, but the schedule was staggered so some offices could remain open to the public five days a week. That practice will cease under the plan approved by City Council members on Tuesday.

"If we do this, City Hall will be completely closed. The doors will be locked," city spokeswoman Kathy Blaha said.

The change also could lead to the first layoffs since Henderson began cutting its budget last year in response to flagging tax revenue and the economic downturn.

The city's budget office supplied council members with an analysis of the closure that looked at eliminating one part-time and 13 full-time positions. Under that scenario, the city would save almost $1.6 million, all but $60,000 of it in labor costs.

No decision has been made about the number of employees to be laid off or how many of them might be moved into vacant positions deemed critical in other departments.

"It could be less. It could be more. It really depends on the economy," city spokeswoman Cindy Herman said.

Council members signed off on the closure effective July 1, but Blaha said the change probably won't take place until late August or early September. That's because city officials are still studying the idea to gauge its impact on the budget as well as on services offered by Nevada's second most populous city.

"We don't want to make any changes that are a hardship on residents. We do not want to impact any essential services," Herman said.

One likely candidate for any layoffs that might occur is the city's Development Services Center, which opened in 2004 as the centerpiece of a $40 million City Hall expansion.

The 40,000-square-foot center was designed to be a one-stop shop for developers and others with business to conduct with the city's planning and building departments, but traffic there has dropped sharply since the collapse of the housing market.

As a result, the center's staff has shrunk from 157 to 61 over the past year.

Blaha said none of those employees was laid off. Instead, some of the workers took the city's voluntary buyout program while others were transferred to openings in other departments, placed on temporary assignment, or had their salaries folded into the outside-funded projects on which they were working.

In addition to the Development Services Center, the city clerk's office and the public works and finance departments are presently open for business on Fridays.

The City Hall closure will not impact emergency services provided by Henderson's police, fire and utility services departments.

With the change, Henderson will join North Las Vegas and Boulder City, which also close their city offices on Fridays.

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.