Giving away the store

Clark County's firefighters have challengers to their title as Southern Nevada's stingiest six-figure misers: Clark County's prosecutors.

Like our well-paid emergency responders, our well-paid district attorneys have told county administrators that they'll keep every dime of the pay raises they were promised, the devastated economy and diminished tax collections be darned.

Prosecutors don't have an official bargaining contract with the county, but that didn't stop District Judge Michelle Leavitt from siding with the attorneys last week in their salary dispute. She ruled that county commissioners violated a labor agreement when they voted in June to reduce prosecutors' so-called cost-of-living increases from 3 percent to 1 percent without the approval of the Clark County Prosecutors Association. The smaller pay raise would have been in line with concessions most other county workers agreed to.

But like the county's firefighters, prosecutors refused to go along. They sued, emboldened by the commission's decision only one year ago to head off formal unionization of the district attorneys by extending them unique benefits.

For years, Clark County's prosecutors and public defenders were compensated as managers. But a handful of district attorneys didn't like the fact that such a designation put them at the front of the line for salary and benefit adjustments as county finances grew tighter. Claiming their concerns were not motivated by money, they sought recognition as a separate bargaining group.

In order to stop that from happening, the labor-friendly commission gave them exactly what they wanted anyway. So while county management (including public defenders) saw a reduction in its take-home pay to cover increased pension contributions, most district attorneys were in line to get 3 percent pay hikes.

The idea that anyone paid a salary of $100,000 or more requires a "cost-of-living" increase to cover the staples of life -- especially when the cost of living is actually falling -- is almost as ridiculous as the idea of attorneys craving the constraints of union representation.

Do these attorneys believe they're underpaid? Watch the law school graduates line up for a single opening with the district attorney or the public defender -- just as 1,300 people lined up Monday to apply for 15 city of Las Vegas firefighter openings this week.

Prosecutors, like firefighters, couldn't care less what kind of hardships are faced by the increasingly unemployed taxpayers who cover their salaries and benefits. A reduction in their raises would have saved the county $311,000, and prosecutors still would have been eligible for "merit" raises of up to 5 percent three months from now.

The county should appeal Judge Leavitt's decision to the Supreme Court.

And for goodness sakes, the County Commission needs to stop giving away the store.