In another example of reversing recent decisions by the Clark County council, the expanded board voted on Tuesday to undo a 2 percent reduction in the county’s property tax levy approved last month.
By a vote of 3 to 2, the council voted to reset the county’s general fund tax levy to a zero-percent change over the taxes collected in 2015, except for what revenue is naturally added through new construction. Councilors Jeanne Stewart, a Republican, Julie Olson, a Republican, and Chairman Marc Boldt, who has no party preference, voted to undo the tax reduction. Councilors David Madore, the Republican who proposed the tax cut in the first place, and Tom Mielke, also a Republican, voted to maintain the 2 percent cut approved on Dec. 1.
“I’d rather preserve funding for financial stability, for the sheriff’s department, for the parks and for the obligations we made in the budget when it was adopted than to go forward with what looks to me like a campaign slogan,” Olson said.
The decision means the county will bring in about $59.4 million in 2016, as opposed to the $58.3 million the county would have brought in under the 2 percent cut, according to a presentation from budget staff. County budget staff projected that the 2 percent cut would have reduced the county’s reserve fund balance to about $21.9 million by the end of 2016, below the $23 million county policy requires to remain in the coffers for emergencies and cash flow.
The actions mark the second time in as many weeks that the Clark County council, which this year expanded from three members to five, voted to overturn actions Madore and Mielke supported last year. At the request of Acting County Manager Mark McCauley, sheriff’s deputies provided extra security in the hearing room, where a packed audience of both critics and supporters of the tax cut cheered and shouted throughout the meeting.
Madore, visibly angered by the decision, said the action showed the board is being governed by “a new liberal majority.”
“What we’re seeing here is dysfunction,” Madore said.
Questions of legality
But debate on whether or not to change the tax levy became a secondary issue after Madore said his fellow councilors would knowingly violate state laws governing public hearings if they moved ahead to a vote.
Tuesday’s action, by state law, should have been handled in a public hearing because it regarded tax revenue, Madore said. No notice of the meeting was given in the county’s paper of record, The Reflector, and instead was listed as a “public meeting,” rather than a hearing, on the county’s website.
“This is a case of unlawfulness,” Madore said.
Tuesday’s decision comes just days before the county’s Friday deadline to forward the tax rolls to the Clark County Treasurer’s Office. No changes could be made to the levy certification past Friday.
But Deputy Prosecutor Chris Horne offered a conflicting interpretation of the law, saying that while budgets do need to be considered in noticed public hearings, Tuesday’s discussion centered on a separate matter: the county’s tax levy certification. Nowhere does state law require that tax levy certifications be handled in a public hearing, Horne said.
“This board already held its public hearing on the budget,” he said. “There’s no changing of the budget.”
The budget the council approved in December did not include any changes or cuts as a result of the tax decrease, and those changes wouldn’t have been made until the spring supplemental budget, the budget office said last month.
Both Horne and Madore also said they reached out for advice from the state Department of Revenue, and Madore said he contacted the Municipal Research and Services Center, a nonprofit research group analyzing local governments.
Madore said both organizations told him the meeting would require a public hearing, then backed away from that assessment once the council learned of Horne’s input, while Horne said the Department of Revenue confirmed that state law doesn’t require a public hearing for certifying levies.
But while an official from the Department of Revenue confirmed that the office spoke to both Horne and Madore, and an official from MRSC also said he spoke to Madore, neither office offered a legal interpretation on whether levy certifications require a public hearing. Both said they referred the matter to Clark County’s legal staff — in this case, Horne.
Mielke agreed with Madore, saying he too believed Tuesday’s hearing to be illegal, but Olson, Stewart and Boldt all deferred to Horne’s interpretation.
“With all due respect, I would rather trust our prosecuting attorney’s office with the interpretation of the laws … as he’s explained for us today,” Olson said.
Where the matter goes from here — and whether Madore goes further to combat what he called the “act of malfeasance” by his fellow councilors — remains to be seen.
