North Las Vegas identifies $7.7 million to settle with bargaining groups

North Las Vegas looked to dig up $7.7 million for a settlement with city bargaining groups Tuesday, money leaders hope will end a two-year legal battle with a trio of public safety unions.

The city plans to rely on untapped cash from five separate budget funds to reach the total announced this week, including a combined $3 million from recently eliminated city jobs and funds stashed in the city’s More Cops sales tax account.

Leaders plan to move an additional $2.2 million out of the city’s statutorily-mandated ending fund balance, shaving a week off the city’s already thin cushion of emergency cash reserves. They’ll also look to put some $2.5 million in municipal court fines and unexpected consolidated tax revenues toward any future settlement.

Officials will seek major concessions in cost-of-living adjustments and merit pay increases as a precondition for freeing up More Cops funds. They also plan to seek confirmation from the state attorney general’s office that dollars from that account — the city’s dedicated police officer hiring and equipment fund — can help subsidize settlement checks destined for city firefighters and police supervisors.

City leaders would still need a supermajority vote to change the city’s charter and allow for a 2 percent cut in cash reserves, but haven’t said when they might put the item on a City Council agenda.

Available dollars from each city-specified funding source add up to a settlement worth only about 31 cents on the dollar to city bargaining groups, who filed a $25 million suit to block a suspension of pay raises under a city-declared “fiscal emergency” in July 2012.

A District Court judge last month ruled the city had no right to suspend the raises, a judgment that saw the city’s projected fiscal 2015 budget deficit balloon to an estimated $43 million liability that city Finance Director Darren Adair said he wasn’t sure the city would be able to cover.

He still isn’t.

“Truthfully, I’m concerned,” Adair told council members Tuesday. “We could be running very close in the general fund. We have to manage our cash very closely.”

City Council members did not take binding action on settlement figures presented Tuesday and haven’t said when they hope to get an official settlement agreement on paper. They have until April 15 to present a tentative budget to state leaders.

It remains far from certain all three public safety unions would sign on once officials are able to draw up a deal.

“They basically chopped all of the money they really have available,” said Police Officers Association President Mike Yarter. “When we left that meeting (Monday) night, More Cops was at $2.5 million, I confirmed it three times, attrition was as $1.5 million and the ending fund balance was 12.3 percent not 8 percent. … $7.7 million won’t resolve all of the lawsuits.”

Agreement on a dollar figure to bring into settlement talks could help brighten the mood at a Committee on Local Government Finance meeting set for early next month.

Officials with the state-run municipal finance oversight board have long kept a hawkish eye on North Las Vegas, seeking regular updates on the state of the city’s finances since its first brush with municipal insolvency in June 2012.

Mayor John Lee hopes this week’s announcement will give them cause to breathe a little easier.

“They want to see that we’re taking this seriously,” Lee said. “If he were here, (Committee Chairman Marvin) Leavitt would be telling us, ‘You need to do these things.’

“We want to show him we’re already doing them.”

Contact reporter James DeHaven at 702-477-3839 or jdehaven@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JamesDeHaven.