A 1979 ordinance limits growth in Boulder City to no more than 120 new residential units per year. “We’ve never even come close to the 120 number,” city attorney Brittany Walker told state lawmakers. (Photo: Travel Nevada/Sydney Martinez)
From not enough students to keep schools open, to recruiting police and firefighter applicants who don’t smoke weed – leaders from Boulder City, Henderson, and Reno apprised state lawmakers Monday of the headwinds facing their individual municipalities.
Boulder City, established in 1931 to house laborers during the construction of Hoover Dam, is now largely a retirement community, challenged to find workers among its aging population.
By choice, Boulder City has no casinos. Its population is 15,000 residents, compared with Clark County’s overall 2.3 million, city officials said. The average age of residents is 51, compared with just under 39 years of age in Clark County, and about half of residents are employed, compared with 63% in the county.
A 1979 ordinance limits growth in Boulder City to no more than 120 new residential units per year. “We’ve never even come close to the 120 number,” city attorney Brittany Walker told lawmakers.
While other jurisdictions struggle with overcrowded classrooms, Boulder City’s limited growth is resulting in a dearth of school-age children, says Walker.
“We have seen our schools struggling with enrollment numbers and keeping teachers. Our population doesn’t have the amount of children to support our schools,” she said, adding the Clark County School District is “trying to increase enrollment from outside of Boulder City so that we can continue to keep our schools open.”
Growing pains
By contrast, Henderson, the second largest city in Nevada behind Las Vegas, is trying to keep up with the demands of 7% growth from 2020 through 2024. Police and fire services eat up 58% of Henderson’s $392 million annual budget.
Consolidated tax revenues, (certain sales and excise taxes, the government service tax collected by the Department of Motor Vehicles, and a transfer tax on property sales), also known as the C-tax, which make up 45% of the city’s revenue, have come in below projections for the last six months, city manager Stephanie Garcia-Vause told legislators.
Property tax, which constitutes 28% of the budget, is assessed at a rate of 77 cents per $100 assessed value – the lowest in Southern Nevada and below the state median of 80 cents.
Although a more stable source of revenue, property tax increases are capped at 3% a year. Modest efforts to adjust the cap or remove abatements have floundered.
The cap has been blamed for depleting local government coffers and prompting the Clark County Commission in 2015 to compensate by increasing the sales tax to pay for more police, at the behest of then-Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who is now governor.
That increase did not include Henderson, which has its own police force.
“An increase in public safety funding will be necessary to maintain our high quality of services as our community continues to grow. Our fire department is of particular concern,” Henderson Mayor Michelle Romero told the committee members, adding many of the city’s fire stations “were built long ago, and they are not equipped for services we have today. Many of them don’t even have separate sleeping quarters or facilities for female firefighters.”
In November, voters rejected a ballot measure to override the cap and raise property taxes by .06 cents to pay for fire services.
“With the failed fire ballot initiative, many of our priorities are going to have to wait like those (fire station) renovations,” Romero said, noting fire and emergency response times “are not hitting our benchmarks and face further strains as our community continues to grow. Whereas police have two outside revenue sources to help weather downturns, the fire department does not, which we see as a potential opportunity for legislative action.”
A Henderson spokesperson did not respond when asked to elaborate on potential legislation to address public safety funding.
Romero added the city is “facing significant challenges” recruiting and retaining firefighters and police.
The city has eliminated bans on facial hair and other “barriers in regard to physical appearance and things like that,” Romero told lawmakers. “What we are unwilling to do is lower our standards for the level of persons coming in and what we are seeing, a lot of them can’t pass the drug test. Marijuana is the biggest problem we have seen that disallows people from moving further into the process.”
Biggest little obstacles
Reno, the fourth largest city in Nevada, is grappling like other cities with lower than projected revenue from its major source of revenue, the C-tax, Reno city manager Jackie Bryant told lawmakers.
“We budgeted a 4% increase in C-tax over last year based on projections. At the time of budgeting, we are currently at 0% growth. This equates to an approximately $4 million deficit fiscal year to date,” she said.
Franchise fees, which make up 14% of the budget, are down 12% from the budgeted amount, as residents cut ties with phone and cable television providers, and conserve energy in order to pay for food and housing, Bryant said.
Public safety costs eat up 60% of Reno’s $354 million general fund budget.
Reno is home to 54% of the Washoe County population and to 87% of the area’s affordable housing.
“Growth has its challenges, and one of them is keeping up with the need for housing,” Bryant said. The median price of a single family home in January was $575,114, far more than the median price of a home in Las Vegas at $480,000.
“Reno has waived $11.3 million in sewer connection fees and has donated $8.8 million in ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funding to support the creation of affordable and workforce housing. Additionally, this legislature has helped Reno to support those who are struggling financially by allocating funding for deposit and rental assistance,” Bryant said.
The city spends $7 million a year on homeless-related issues, and invests funds in additional initiatives to assist unhoused individuals, such as the Rapid Rehousing Program, which moves people from the streets to apartments with wraparound services for as long as two years with no charge. Since its funding in July, the partnership with Volunteers of America and the Reno Housing Authority has moved ten people into apartments.
“I won’t belabor the point. Labor costs are increasing. Revenues are declining,” Bryant said. “Add to that the increasing number of people who are moving into Reno which creates an increased need for services and infrastructure. It is difficult to keep up.”