City can’t lay off police union members for at least 90 days
North Las Vegas cannot lay off police union members — including a dozen police officers — for at least 90 days, a judge ruled Friday.
District Judge Nancy Allf issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits the city from proceeding with the layoffs of nearly 40 members of the Police Officers Association. She also ordered the union and the city to continue talks during the 90 days to try to come to an agreement. Both parties must report back to the judge at that time.
Allf called the dispute “a contract case” and said the union’s contract, as amended in January, prohibited the layoffs.
“I cannot sit back and let the city breach this contract when it has potential ramifications” in North Las Vegas, she said. “Public safety issues are one of the most important things that I as a judge have to look at.”
The layoffs, part of the city’s plan to bridge a
$30.3 million shortfall in fiscal year 2012, were supposed to be effective by Thursday. The new fiscal year started Friday.
During three days of testimony on the matter, city officials said they have to lay off other city employees if they can’t lay off police and could face severe financial problems that could force a takeover of the city’s finances by the state.
Those testifying included Police Chief Joseph Chronister, who said that his department is already understaffed and that layoffs would make it harder for police to do their jobs.
“It’s going to get done. But it will be done at a reduced level,” he said.
Police union officials have said the loss of more officers would leave the city unsafe and have posted billboards around the city stating so.
agreement ‘not ambiguous’
The court dispute centered on whether the layoffs violated an early 2011 agreement between the city and union in which the city agreed to “no layoffs for 18 months.”
The agreement “says no layoffs for 18 months – period,” said Jeffrey Allen, an attorney for the union.
Allf agreed.
“That to me is not ambiguous in any way,” she said.
At one point during her ruling, Allf questioned whether the city “ever intended to live up to the agreement.”
City officials said that the agreement simply laid out a set of procedural steps the city must follow before starting layoffs and that those conditions have been met.
As part of the agreement between the two parties, made during contract concession talks, union officials said they would sit for more talks if a “mutually agreed upon third party review” determined the city’s budget shortfall would require further concessions.
But an outside financial review completed in June by Mark Alden, an accountant and member of the higher education system’s Board of Regents, said the city budget shortfall “absolutely does not require further concessions” from the union. It also said the city has decreased funding for police at an “alarming rate” in recent years while increasing other expenditures.
Impartiality questioned
City officials contested the review, saying it included several errors and “improper analysis.” The review in places incorrectly factors in capital or restricted funds where it should be based only on operating funds, they said.
Officials also said a portion of the review dealing with a separate 2003 “forensic accounting investigation” of losses of funds in the city jail’s inmate commissary accounts was “completely outside the scope” of the current audit and raised “the question of bias and/or lack of impartiality.”
Alden, who testified Wednesday, said he included the item to illustrate the city’s historical lack of financial integrity.
The union chose Alden to complete the review, but the city agreed to the choice. Alden said he charged the union $15,000 for the work.
He repeatedly defended his ability to be independent Wednesday.
“They might be paying me. Nobody owns me,” he said. “Just my wife.”
Richard Bowler, an accountant who testified for the city, said Alden’s review was more of a “forensic audit” and didn’t focus on the assignment given. The result, he said, “demonstrates a lack of objectivity.”
Bowler’s firm has audited North Las Vegas’s financial statements for years.
NLV budget cuts
The City Council in May approved a budget that included slashing 258 positions across city departments, including those of the police officers, unless concession agreements were reached with its employee unions. The positions also included those of 40 firefighters. More than 150 of the positions belong to the city’s Teamsters members, who work in jobs ranging from park maintenance to code enforcement.
Mayor Shari Buck, who has repeatedly said she would not support more cuts to public safety, was the only council member to vote against the budget. The cuts should come from elsewhere, she said, adding the city might want to consider outsourcing some of its functions.
The police union has suggested the city could use some of the money in its utility fund to avoid laying off police officers. But the city insists it cannot use funds raised and meant for utilities for other expenses.
The city has for decades used some of the money it collects in water and wastewater fees to shore up the general fund. The council in 2009 voted to cap at
$32 million the amount the city transfers out of its utility fund into its general fund each year. State legislators this year approved a bill that limits the amount of such transfers. City officials say they have 10 years to “wean” the city off its dependence on the money for the general fund.
The city said if it can’t lay off police union members, it will have to lay off 50 additional employees from other departments.
State intervention scenario
Otherwise, the city might have to declare a severe financial emergency, said Al Noyola, acting director of administrative services and finance for the city. That would trigger state intervention into the city’s financial management.
State Department of Taxation officials have promised that, if they have to take over North Las Vegas’s finances, their first step will be to raise taxes on citizens “to the maximum extent” allowable under the law, Noyola said.
He further testified that the city is “in an extraordinarily precarious (financial) situation” and that “every day we delay … the deficit continues to grow.”
The City Council will be tasked with the decision of where to cut to make up for the delayed layoffs of police union employees. The council is scheduled to discuss “budget priorities in relation to the city’s current financial situation” during its Wednesday meeting.
Earlier this week, Buck said she doesn’t believe “anybody wants to have the state come in,” especially because the council then “won’t have any decisions on finances at all.”
The city is exploring other options to trim the budget in lieu of the police union layoffs, she said.
“What we need to do is try to mend these fences with our unions and see if they’ll be willing to come back in and help,” she said. “There’s a lot of mistrust. They don’t believe we’ve kept our word.”
Allen said the union remains open to working with the city.
Such talks “are more likely to work now because the city has to recognize that as a starting point for further negotiations they have to abide by the existing (agreement) that says no layoffs for 18 months,” he said.
‘Devastating’ effect
Councilwoman Anita Wood, who has had a contentious relationship with the police union, said she hopes “the judge’s order will get them to come to the table and be reasonable.”
The injunction will be “devastating to the budget,” she said.
North Las Vegas employs about 290 police officers, 119 corrections officers, 21 full-time and 12 part-time marshals.
The city has experienced plummeting property tax and other revenues during the recession. It has gone through several rounds of budget cuts since late 2008 and eliminated or frozen nearly 900 positions.
In June, 188 workers were laid off. Another 44, all North Las Vegas Detention Center workers, were let go in October after the jail lost about a third of its inmates to a new lockup for federal inmates in Pahrump.
The city employs about 1,600 people.
Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.
