North Las Vegas Begins Layoffs

Some of you may recall our coverage from earlier in the month about the fate of the workers of the city of North Las Vegas. That coverage talked about some of the serious cuts that the city has had to make in order to make ends meet, including cuts to certain essential city services. For those of you who did not catch that coverage here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed in no time at all, “Today we are going to take a look at the curious case of North Las Vegas. This city is so deeply in debt that they are making cuts that can only be classified as bone deep. In order to get itself out of a $33 million pile of debt the city of North Las Vegas is making some very serious cuts to the most basic of community services. To that end they are planning to make what they have termed massive cuts to police and fire services in the city.”

At the time the city was not releasing any details about when exactly the expected to be cutting back on the workers who were to be impacted by the cuts. Well it looks like the time is now, at least for some of the workers, and the notices are coming in small chunks. On Friday and over the weekend the city began to give out layoff notices to the workers. Before the week was over only 15 workers had been given their walking papers, but when all in said and done another 200 workers are going to be out of a job and looking for new positions.

The city of North Las Vegas is not, for the time being, saying when the layoff notices go into effect, but they may be implementing them in waves because the workers are going to be leaving the payrolls on different dates. Or it may simply be a matter of convenience as these workers come from different departments and have the terms of different union contracts to deal with before the layoffs can be considered legal and complete. We do know that all of the layoff notices are likely to go out before the 1^st of June. After that date the city’s new budget will kick into effect and the workers have to be off of the payroll. If the city cannot do that then they will be forced to declare bankruptcy by the State Department of Taxation.

At least the city sent out notices that were kind. In the notices that went out to member of the well known Teamsters union the following was said, “The city values you and your contributions, however, after careful review, the position you occupy has been selected for elimination. This action was determined based on revenue reduction and the need to reduce cost of services.”

The city is still hoping to avoid making more layoffs in the future by negotiating with the worker’s unions. For the time being there is not word on the progress of these talks.