During today’s Las Vegas City Council meeting, City Manager Betsy Fretwell presented a plan in which city of Las Vegas executive and appointive employees take approximately an 8-percent cut to their salary and benefits in order to help the city deal with its budget shortfall. The council approved the plan to go into effect July 1, 2010, pending similar concessions by the city’s other employee bargaining units. This move will save the city approximately $3 million.

Fretwell has asked all employee bargaining units to consider taking an 8-percent reduction in salary and benefits to help the city deal with a more than $400 million shortfall over the next five years, in an attempt to stave off massive layoffs.

The executive and appointive employees are considered “at-will” employees, so they are not represented by a collective bargaining unit.

The city of Las Vegas currently has 115 executive employees, who serve as directors, deputy directors and managers overseeing the city’s 17 departments. These executive employees oversee their department budgets, which are approved by the council. These executive employees would reduce their salaries through furloughs and wage roll-backs, reducing their benefits by way of foregoing the city’s match to their 401a employee retirement program and a contribution to the Public Employees Retirement System and foregoing their nine administrative and merit days off. These employees have not received merit increases or performance bonuses for the last two years.

The city of Las Vegas currently has 183 appointive employees, who serve as professional and support staff, including analysts and administrative officers who have significant programmatic responsibilities. These appointive employees as well would reduce their salaries through furloughs and wage roll-backs, reducing their benefits by way of foregoing the city’s match to their 401a employee retirement program and a contribution to the Public Employees Retirement System and foregoing their five administrative and merit days off. These employees have not received merit increases for the last two years, and also did not receive a cost of living increase last year.

“These employees are trying to set an example for the entire city, and their efforts should be applauded,” Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman said. “The bottom line is the only alternative to resolving this by agreement is by reducing our employee workforce and we certainly don’t want to do that and we’re doing everything in our power to secure the positions of those who have been so loyal to us over the years. I hope that during the negotiations everyone is going to try to come up with solutions to make it as easy as possible for people to keep their jobs and continue providing important services to our community.”

At the council meeting city staff indicated that meetings with the city’s four bargaining units to discuss wage and benefit reductions are pending.