By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
A study into the financial feasibility of a proposed incorporated Moapa Valley city was presented to the Nevada Committee on Local Government Finance (NCLGF) for consideration at a meeting held in Carson City on Friday, October 22. The meeting was attended, via video conference to the Grant Sawyer Building in Las Vegas, by members of the Moapa Valley Incorporation Committee and county officials.
After hearing a presentation of the study, given by Nevada Department of Taxation analyst Tom Greensbery, Committee members determined that there was still insufficient detail provided to make a decision that would adopt the study and send it on to the County Commission for further action. Instead the Committee moved to form a sub-committee and seek out crucial details still missing from the study.
Earlier this year, the ad hoc Moapa Valley Committee on Incorporation filed a formal petition requesting a feasibility study on a proposed city. The proposed city would be made up of the current towns of Logandale and Overton. in the lower valley area. Moapa and the upper Muddy were left out of consideration because Moapa Town Board officials expressed a desire not to be included.
The Incorporation Committee’s petition filing contained a projected budget for the proposed city. The budget was based on informal research done by committee members comparing budgets of similar cities in the region.
“Their numbers made an attempt to project revenues and expenditures and concluded with a revenue neutral position,” explained Greensbery. “Our efforts were to give their numbers a smell test to see if they would hold up.”
On the revenue side, the proposed draft study provided details which had not been readily available to the local committee to include in their request. The Consolidated State Sales Tax revenue component was projected at around $1.15 million for fiscal year 2012. The community’s Gas Tax allocation for road construction and maintenance was calculated at $381,587. Calculating property taxes at current rates yielded $636,400 in revenue. The total of these and other revenue projections came in roughly comparable to projections made by the local committee members.
But Greensbery observed that the report did not include the possibility of other sources of revenue which a new city might generate. He listed examples which could include local gaming and lodging taxes, grants, possible increases in licenses and permit fees, voter approved tax rates. Greensbery pointed out that there was even room for a modest increase in property taxes if the city should so choose.
The expenditure side of the proposed study offered much less in details. Greensbery explained that, in many instances, Clark County is unable to isolate expenditures for a single township. Thus the report lacked hard numbers on things like road maintenance, parks upkeep, Parks and Rec staffing etc.
“When it came to parks for example, we didn’t know a lot about those things, so we just accepted what was provided to us (by the local committee),” Greensbery said.
In the area of Fire protection, the preliminary budget filed by the local Committee on Incorporation had projected a $500,000 expenditure to pay for a fire chief as well as equipment and maintenance costs of a local volunteer fire department organization. Greensbery asserted the possibility that the existing Moapa Fire Protection District might continue providing this service to the city.
“If an arrangement like that was made then you could have a half million dollar cost that would be absorbed by the district instead of the city,” Greensbery said.
The largest discrepancy in projected numbers came in the area of police protection. The local Incorporation Committee request suggested that the proposed city might contract with Metropolitan Police Department to continue service in the community.
Greensbery said that his group had contacted Metro officials to get an idea what the cost for such an arrangement might be. They found that the northeast county segment of Metro is “quite heavy in salary costs for employees”.
Currently this includes nine officers, one sergeant and an administrative position, Greensbery reported. Also included in the total cost would be equipment, vehicles, supplies and capital expenditures.
Given this, the total cost for Metro service in the northeast Clark County area was estimated at $1.9 million, Greensbery said. But this figure included the cost of patrolling a much larger area than included in the proposed city. It currently includes the towns of Bunkerville, Moapa and the surrounding remote desert areas: from Gold Butte to Coyote Springs.
Metro officials estimated that the Logandale/Overton area should be allocated 90% of the total cost at around $1.7 million. This estimate for police service came in considerably higher than the $738,000 which had been projected by the local Incorporation Committee and caused a final negative fund balance of $446,000.
Greensbery also stated that there were other possible expenditures that the report might have missed including the operation/ maintenance cost of city facilities, costs of financial audits and liability insurance costs.
Committee on Local Government Finance chairman Marvin Leavitt, himself a resident of Overton, stated that he felt the feasibility report was far from conclusive and that there was more work to be done before an informed decision was possible.
“A lot of things seem somewhat nebulous at the moment,” Leavitt said. “This has identified a lot of the major expenses but more details are needed. There are more questions remaining than answers presented.”
Leavitt suggested that a subcommittee be formed to do further study on the matter. The subcommittee would bring together local proponents of incorporation with county officials to work through yet unanswered questions, Leavitt said. He asked if there were any objections to this idea.
“I think it is a good idea,” responded Committee on Moapa Valley Incorporation chairman Ben Robison. “We agree that it is more important to go through this process carefully and do it correctly rather than rush to meet a random timeframe.”
“We agree as well,” said Clark County finance official Jeffrey Share. “We have seen that there are several issues that are incomplete here that should be considered.”
Share said that he would be happy to work with the proposed subcommittee to “explain how the County is handling costs in the Moapa Valley”.
“Then we will go ahead and form a subcommittee and set up a meeting in the near future to start this process,” Leavitt concluded.
