PHOTO/DENNIS MYERS
On his way to City Hall one day last week, Reno Mayor Bob Cashell stopped for coffee and chatted with citizens.
Heller: I’m for NOTC Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dean Heller’s campaign said last week that if some of his supporters are backing the lawsuit that seeks to overturn Nevada’s “none of these candidates” (NOTC) ballot option, they’re not speaking for him. The lawsuit filing invokes Heller’s name, but his campaign spokesperson said, “Neither Senator Heller or his campaign is involved with this suit. In fact, as [Nevada] secretary of state, Senator Heller defended NOTC.” In related news, Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston wrote last week that a Republican National HELLER Committee told him the RNC “is financially supporting an effort to bring clarity to the Nevada presidential election ballot”—an RNC way of describing the effort to torpedo NOTC. Among the plaintiffs are an official of the Nevada Republican Party and one of the GOP candidates for Nevada presidential elector.
Lee defeat eases northern woes The defeat of conservative Clark County Sen. John Lee in the Democratic primary will remove a thorn from the sides of Northern Nevada legislators. Lee, of North Las Vegas, has been a chronic presence in bills affecting the north. At last year’s Legislature, Lee successfully sponsored legislation to pull Nevada out of the bi-state Tahoe Regional Planning Agency unless the state gets its way on some key policy points, including change in the TRPA board voting system. At another Legislature, Lee used his prerogative as committee chair to kill a measure that would have changed Reno City Council elections so that councilmembers were elected by voters in their wards. Currently, the candidates must be elected city-wide, making running for the Council very expensive.
Pension abuse A Chicago organization called Taxpayers United of America has issued a report titled “Nevada’s Staggering Government Pension System Revealed!” The group’s numbers are staggering, all right. That’s probably because its people made them up. And they also failed to do basic research. The numbers needed to make actual calculations were unavailable from the Nevada Public Employees Retirement System because of privacy rules, so Taxpayers United “estimated” pension costs. Nevertheless, many media outlets reported the findings straight, as though they had validity. In one case the report—actually more of a news release— showcased Washoe County School Superintendent Heath Morrison as a particularly notable case of pension abuse: “Heath Morrison, a Washoe County government school district superintendent, has an estimated annual pension of $199,548, based on his actual annual gross of $259,153, with an estimated lifetime payout of $9,494,494.” Except that Morrison, who is soon leaving to take another job, doesn’t get a pension. He didn’t work in Reno long enough to qualify for one. “Dr. Morrison is not vested in the Nevada Public Employees Retirement System and he will not be when he leaves … at the end of next week,” according to school district chief accountant Thomas Ciesynski. Taxpayers United also estimated former UNLV basketball coach Lon Kruger annual pension payments at $466,000, which the Las Vegas Sun reported is four times the accurate figure.
—Dennis Myers 6
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RN&R
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JUNE 28, 2012
Labor intensive With just hours to go, Cashell still tries to stop fire deconsolidation Consolidation of fire services in the Truckee Meadows lasted just 12 years. by The combined services began Dennis Myers operating in 2000 and it will come to an end on July 1, unless the county has a dramatic change of heart. Reno Mayor Bob Cashell was still trying to keep consolidation together as this was written, but even he seemed to be losing heart toward the end. “Well, I was, but—some of the stuff they want to do caused me problems,” he said. The Washoe County Commission voted 4 to 1 on June 28, 2011, to break away from con-
“I want nothing to do with your labor agreement.” David Humke Washoe County Commissioner
solidated fire services. In the year since then, city officials have tried to get the county to reconsider that decision, with little effect. Cashell said the city worked with unions—he praises them for being flexible and working out differences among themselves—and came up with a plan for keeping all stations open with four-person crews, and it was rejected by the county. Washoe County
Commission chair John Breternitz said that solution would have lasted for only a year and then taken the county into the red. Cashell responded that it would have given the two entities a year to work on the problem. Cashell: “If we went to a joint powers agreement negotiation, they would all sit down at the table with us, and we would negotiate every contract we have with the fire union. And we’d have county commissioners on it, City Council on it, staffs, legal—everybody would have set down and negotiated with the union. … Then every station in Washoe County except for Sparks would have been open with fourman crews, with it set up the way it was. There would have been no tax increase, none. And then they [county officials] had a meeting, a closed door meeting, and agreed they weren’t going to do it and so they never discussed it—to the best of my knowledge—publicly or anything. They just decided no.” Breternitz: “That’s true, because it would have worked for less than a year and then we would have gone in the red. You know, our goal is sustainability, and we can’t maintain a long-term fire service under the terms of the Reno fire contract. There was not a deal. It was one commissioner had had discussions and brought it to the county commission in a closed labor session, and we decided that we couldn’t afford that contract
with that union. And therefore, there was never a deal.” Cashell said that under the agreement, “Their [county] reserves would have actually gone up … by $1.7 million. … [I]f we’d stayed in negotiations, we could have negotiated those contracts.” There was wide confusion, even in county ranks, at the Washoe County Commission’s determination to deconsolidate, and some officials in the end believed that it came down to ideology—the four Republicans on the commission taking advantage of hard times to inflict as much damage as possible on labor unions. That would indicate that the kind of dogmatic polarization that exists in Congress and has afflicted the Nevada Legislature is now a factor in county government, as well. “Government consolidation is a conservative article of faith, and here we had the four Republicans opposing it,” said one county agency official. When it became clear that the county was immovable on deconsolidation, Cashell hastened to Washington, D.C., where he met with U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, who set him up a meeting at the White House with the presidential liaison with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When Cashell returned to Reno he had what he needed to make sure the city was not injured, financially at least, by deconsolidation—a $14 million grant that would take care of all of Reno’s needs in the transition from consolidated services. “Every station in Reno will be open with four man crews,” Cashell said. That also complicated prevention of deconsolidation, though. The grant is written for a city fire system and would have to be retooled to accommodate a consolidated system. Cashell is willing to go back and get that done, but it further complicates his hope of stopping deconsolidation. Cashell pointed out that the county is having to raise taxes in the unincorporated areas, something he said would have been averted by retaining consolidation and continuing to negotiate. Cashell: “And they’re going to raise the taxes now. They’re going to raise the taxes in their unincorporated area to make theirs work. … And they didn’t have to before.” Breternitz: “Well, that is true and the reason for that is because
