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| NEWS > 05 March 2006 |
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Accused of profiling, police c
BRISTOL - Facing allegations by local NAACP leaders that "racism and racial profiling is alive and well in the police department," one police official asked last week, "Where's the proof?"
Monica Ervin and the Rev. E.J. Moss, president and treasurer respectively, of the city's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, recently stated that police in Bristol target black people when enforcing the law.
Moreover, Ervin said her issue with city police is not so much about race as is the level of competence with which some officers handle ... Read more
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Las Vegas Review-Journal - Las
05 March 2006
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Las Vegas police recruits unde
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NEW POLICE CONTRACT: Strong pa
An arbitrator evaluating a new four-year contract for Las Vegas police officers sided with management in a decision released late Saturday.
The arbitrator, who had considered dueling proposals from the Las Vegas Police Protective Association and the governments of Clark County and the city of Las Vegas, selected the governments' offer to raise salaries and benefits by 21.8 percent over the next four years. The union, which represents 2,600 Las Vegas police and corrections officers, asked for a 26.5 percent hike.
"The county is interested in compensating our police men and women. ... Even with this decision, they will be well compensated," County Manager Thom Reilly said after receiving word of the arbitrator's decision.
Reilly said the contract contains the largest increase Clark County has awarded an employees union.
Before the arbitrator ruled, police wages in Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas already were among the best in the country, according to newly released figures from policepay.net, a consulting company that compiles information on salaries and benefits from police contracts at the nation's 200 largest departments.
When the cost of living in each community is taken into account, the salaries of officers in Las Vegas ranked 14th highest among the 200 departments based on salary data from the Las Vegas police contract that expired in June, according to policepay.net's latest figures, which do not reflect the new contract approved Saturday. After the new contract is implemented, the department is expected to rank higher on the list.
Police salaries in North Las Vegas were third highest of the 200 behind only those in Austin, Texas, and Omaha, Neb., and police salaries in Henderson ranked 10th highest when each community's cost of living is considered, according to policepay.net.
When looking state by state at police salaries in those 200 cities, salaries in Nevada are second only to California's, according to policepay.net. And among 17 large and medium Western cities selected by the Review-Journal for comparison, policepay.net figures also placed the Southern Nevada jurisdictions high, all among the top six in cost per employee, compensation per hour worked, or hourly compensation adjusted for cost of living.
Las Vegas city and county officials offered no apologies for the salaries they pay police and dismissed suggestions that the police officers' union would oppose their re-election if they challenged the officers' salary demands.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said the on-duty shooting death in February of Las Vegas police Sgt. Henry Prendes underscored for him how "priceless" police officers are to the community.
"I don't see anything wrong with it (high police salaries). I am delighted with the service we get from our police officers," Goodman said. "They're priceless. I really believe that. When you look at a situation like the one with Sergeant Prendes, it puts things in perspective."
Henderson retiree Donald McDonald, who co-authored the ballot argument against Measure 9, the 2004 advisory question that county voters narrowly approved and that led to an increase in the sales tax in October to hire hundreds more officers across Southern Nevada, said the high salaries are a waste of taxpayer money.
Also, he pointed out, the high salaries paid to officers in Southern Nevada undermine each police department's ability to hire the maximum number of officers possible with the Measure 9 quarter-cent sales-tax hike. Obviously, he said, the higher the salaries, the fewer officers who can be hired with the same funding.
"I don't think paying someone more money makes them any better. I don't think there is a correlation between what you're paid and how hard you work. If we paid them twice the wages, they are not going to be twice as good," McDonald said. "If we paid them half as much, would they put in only half the effort?"
Las Vegas city and county officials said their constituents insist that public safety be the priority for local government, that a quality police force is pivotal in protecting Las Vegas' tourism, that the high salaries help prevent police corruption and that wages are comparable at all Southern Nevada police departments.
But they were short on explanations when asked why police salaries and benefits cost taxpayers here as much as 46 percent more than they cost taxpayers in other Western cities, such as Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, San Diego, Phoenix, Seattle and Denver, based on policepay.net figures.
County commissioners Rory Reid, Chip Maxfield, Yvonne Atkinson Gates and Lynette Boggs McDonald and Las Vegas City Council members Lois Tarkanian, Steve Ross, Lawrence Weekly and Gary Reese either didn't return a phone call left at their office or couldn't be reached for comment last week.
Carole Vilardo, president of the Nevada Taxpayers Association, said last week she was too busy with association business to review the police salaries or to be interviewed.
When asked why Las Vegas needs to pay its officers more, County Commissioner Tom Collins, a former state lawmaker, on Tuesday said, "I don't know" before he abruptly hung up the phone.
"There are a lot of communities in this country where cops are on the take," Collins said. "That has never been the case in Nevada. Our cops are highly skilled and highly trained and deserve everything they get."
Commissioner Bruce Woodbury acknowledged that police salaries have been a concern of county officials because the ever-increasing costs are taking tax money from other public services.
But when asked why Las Vegas pays more for police officers than other Western cities, Woodbury said, "I can't answer that directly other than to say we want to get as good of a handle as we can on the (budget) balancing act."
He went on to say, "We have a unique community and we have to deal with our needs here and we have to attract competent people to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department ... but we can't have an open checkbook."
California-based arbitrator Douglas Collins ruled Saturday on police contract proposals that were debated in courtroomlike fashion during three or four days of closed-door deliberations before him in January.
One was presented by the Police Protective Association. The other was proposed by Clark County and the city of Las Vegas, which jointly fund the department's budget.
The two proposals included an annual cost-of-living raise of 3.5 percent that is retroactive to July 1, when the former contract expired.
The new contract is expected to cost taxpayers in unincorporated Clark County and the city of Las Vegas about $50 million before the pact expires in June 2009.
"I think it is a positive if we, as a state, and we, as a city, are ranked in the top 10 percent of compensation packages. I think that is a positive," Las Vegas City Councilman Larry Brown said before the arbitrator's decision. "If you downgrade the compensation package, then you run the risk of getting a lower quality of officer."
Brown said the city doesn't expect the higher costs associated with the new contract to lead to budget cuts or layoffs at the police department or with any other city service. A recently submitted police budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts in July includes a 17 percent increase in costs over the current year's budget.
The councilman said public safety always has been the city's priority, and other "discretionary" city programs could be cut or have their budgets reduced if more tax money were needed for the police department and officers' salaries.
McDonald said that officers are making far more than the average worker in Southern Nevada and that all public-sector salaries should be tied to the salaries of local taxpayers who pay the government and police salaries.
"There should be some relationship between the compensation the average taxpayer receives and the wages that the police officers receive," McDonald said. "When you put a pencil to that, it's all out of whack. They (police officers) have gotten at least one-third more than the average taxpayer."
When looking at salaries and benefits for police officers in 17 Western cities, the hourly compensation of an officer in Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas were the highest when each community's cost of living was considered, according to policepay.net.
With the cost of living in Southern Nevada factored in, the average hourly compensation for those three departments ranged from a low of $49.85 an hour in Las Vegas up to $53 an hour in North Las Vegas. The wages in Las Vegas will jump after the new contract is approved.
Policepay.net calculates that figure based on the local cost of living relative to the national average. Because the cost of living in Southern Nevada is slightly higher than the national average, the adjusted hourly rate for local police is somewhat lower than the actual hourly compensation.
Actual compensation is $59.73 in North Las Vegas, $57.36 in Henderson, and $56.18 in Las Vegas. Both hourly and adjusted figures are for hours actually worked by an officer, after deducting sick, holiday, and vacation hours.
The figures also include any shift pay, uniform allowance, pension contribution, health insurance and "other" benefits officers receive, according to policepay.net.
Of the 17 communities from Albuquerque to Seattle and from San Diego to Boise, Idaho, the fourth highest hourly wage was paid in Reno, according to the Web site.
When looking at the total cost to taxpayers of a police officer's salary, pension and health coverage, the three Southern Nevada communities and Reno were four of the six most expensive.
The Web site states that the total cost of an average Las Vegas officer is $95,867, which is 37 percent higher than the same costs in Boise; 42 percent higher than in Salt Lake City; and 46 percent higher than in Albuquerque.
Of the 17 Western cities selected by the Review-Journal, the three Southern Nevada communities were in the top four for the annual cost of an officer's pension. The $17,080 average annual cost of a Las Vegas officer's pension was the highest of the 17 departments looked at by the Review-Journal.
That expense will grow under the terms of the new contract.
State lawmakers last year mandated that public employees and their government employers share equally a 3.5 percent increase in contributions paid annually on behalf of employees into the state Public Employee Retirement System.
However, in the case of the Las Vegas police contract, management already has agreed to pay for the entire increase rather than have the officers pay half of it.
Conversely, of the 17 Western cities used for comparison, the $4,817 cost that the Las Vegas police pay annually for an officer's health coverage was the lowest.
Along with cost-of-living raises, the primary dispute that held up the Las Vegas police contract talks for 10 months before they were sent to arbitration was the officers' demands for better health coverage, sources close to the talks have said since late last year.
Under the union proposal that was considered by the arbitrator, the 2004 cost of an officer's health coverage was expected to nearly double in the final year of the new pact.
Review-Journal writer Brian Haynes contributed to this story.
Nevada police lead in cost-of-living-adjusted pay
Department....Hourly rate**....Average hourly adjusted for local cost of living
North Las Vegas....$59.73....$53.00
Henderson....$57.36....$50.90
Las Vegas*....$56.18....$49.85
Reno....$53.00....$48.53
Tucson, Ariz.....$46.38....$48.11
Phoenix....$46.41....$47.35
Denver....$48.32....$46.96
San Bernardino, Calif.....$55.14....$46.69
Spokane, Wash.....$47.47....$46.40
Seattle....$54.02....$45.97
San Francisco....$69.58....$45.77
Portland, Ore.....$49.89....$44.23
Salt Lake City....$38.78....$40.36
Boise, Idaho....$38.25....$39.93
Los Angeles....$58.60....$37.78
Albuquerque, N.M.....$35.48....$36.46
San Diego....$46.85....$31.85
*Las Vegas figures are based on police contract that expired June 30, 2005. A new contract, ruled on by an arbitrator Saturday, calls for a 21.8 percent increase in salary and benefits over the next four years.
**Total annual compensation divided by hours actually worked.
Source: policepay.net
Las Vegas police rank sixth in base pay
Department....Average annual base pay
1. San Francisco....$87,601
2. Los Angeles....$73,161
3. San Bernardino, Calif.....$69,707
4. Henderson....$69,627
5. North Las Vegas....$66,692
6. Las Vegas*....$65,612
7. Denver....$65,057
8. Seattle....$64801
9. San Diego....$63,999
10. Portland, Ore.....$61,903
11. Tucson, Ariz.....$61,452
12. Reno....$58,698
13. Spokane, Wash.....$57,152
14. Phoenix....$55,853
15. Boise, Idaho....$48,315
16. Salt Lake City....$47,482
17. Albuquerque, N.M.....$43,117
Las Vegas police rank fifth highest in cost per officer
Department....Total cost per employee
1. San Francisco....$117,601
2. Henderson....$102,180
3. North Las Vegas....$101,886
4. Los Angeles....$97,285
5. Las Vegas*....$95,867
6. Reno....$94,779
7. San Bernardino, Calif.....$94,685
8. Seattle....$93,595
9. Portland, Ore.....$86,125
10. Denver....$85,882
11. Tucson, Ariz.....$85,185
12. San Diego....$83,763
13. Phoenix....$83,203
14. Spokane, Wash.....$81,142
15. Boise, Idaho....$69,885
16. Salt Lake City....$67,276
17. Albuquerque, N.M.....$65,272
*Las Vegas figures are based on police contract that expired June 30, 2005. A new contract, ruled on by an arbitrator Saturday, calls for a 21.8 percent increase in salary and benefits over the next four years.
Source: policepay.net
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