North Las Vegas Revises Financial Outlook
By: James DeHaven (Las Vegas Review Journal) August 2014
North Las Vegas looked for a break in its gloomy fiscal forecast Monday, unveiling a flurry of potential economic growth initiatives at the first of three planned “financial summit” meetings on the state of the city’s finances.
Cash-strapped city leaders wrapped up this week’s summit with a revised seven-year fiscal projection from city Finance Director Darren Adair, who expects union concessions and gains in city tax revenues to help take a $78 million chunk out of the city’s anticipated $152.5 million long-term deficit.
Adair said North Las Vegas’ earlier deficit estimates will have to be adjusted because of a series of long-awaited legal agreements reached in April with the city’s four major bargaining groups. The agreements settled a two-year legal battle over $25 million in union employee pay raises suspended in a city-declared fiscal emergency in June 2012.
Between that, a smattering of new revenues and a pinch of “operational efficiencies” — including some potential refinancing help from city bond insurers — Adair figures the city could have the recipe for eventually balancing its books.
Meanwhile, the city still will need tens of millions of dollars in new annual revenue to keep up with an estimated $430 million in outstanding bond payments, all while weaning itself off a roughly $30 million state-administered sewer fund subsidy set to disappear in 2021.
City leaders and summit attendees offered no shortage of creative ways to help make up that projected shortfall.
Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins suggested tweaking the city’s animal ordinances to encourage the arrival of rodeo and roping events.
City Councilman Isaac Barron managed to one-up Collins with a perhaps even less expected revenue booster: a professional sports franchise.
“There are people talking to us about bringing in a minor league sports team and even bringing a stadium in here to support it,” Barron revealed Monday. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I’d like to see here.”
City officials confirmed talks to help land a sports team north of Carey Avenue but, like Barron, declined to offer any further details on the negotiations.
Studies aimed at jump starting economic growth and re-evaluating the city’s pay structure counted among the more pedestrian revenue raising solutions put forward by city leaders Monday.
City Manager Qiong Liu said the city is looking into a comprehensive compensation study aimed at finding gaps in the city’s hiring, retention and contract negotiation practices.
She and other city officials say economic analysts at UNLV’s Brookings Mountain West Institute have already been enlisted to pick apart the city’s organizational structure and economic development strategy in a comprehensive growth study due for City Council review this fall.
Growth study consultant and former Clark County Manager Thom Reilly expects the survey of North Las Vegas’ financial landscape will leave no stone unturned.
