Nevada lawmakers welcome pay raises for local officials

Lawmakers said Wednesday they welcome pay raises for Nevada's county sheriff's and district attorneys, but want to ensure other local elected officials get more money too.

SB53, giving county law and order officials total pay raises of about 27 percent, will be amended by the Senate Government Affairs Committee to also bump up pay for clerks, assessors, recorders, treasurers and public administrators. The raises would be retroactive to Jan. 6.

"These elected county officers deserve a pay raise," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno. Other lawmakers agreed, and the panel will take another look at SB53 next week.

The amended bill will be modeled on AB66, scheduled to be considered by an Assembly panel on Monday.

That measure would raise annual base pay for Clark County elected officials from $72,000 to $115,584. In Washoe County, the same jobs would increase in pay from $66,000 to $90,031.

In remaining counties, where the officials now earn from $33,600 to $51,360 a year, the pay would increase to $45,834 in the smallest county and to $70,060 in larger counties.

Officials from the Nevada Association of Counties say none of the officials has had a raise for several years.

The percentage of increase was matched to the overall average increase in private-sector pay rates over that period, and hiked even further for some counties due to workload increases.

Pay scales are firm but counties may win wiggle room by claiming financial hardship.

District attorneys' pay in Carson City and Douglas, Lyon, Elko, Humboldt and Nye counties would increase under the bill from $72,360 a year to $98,707. Sheriffs' pay in the same counties would increase from $60,000 to $81,846 annually.

In Washoe County, the district attorney's pay would increase from $96,000 to $137,484 and the sheriff's salary from $78,000 to $110,632.

Clark County's district attorney would be paid $155,744 a year instead of $100,800 and the sheriff $134,262 instead of $84,000.

In the state's smallest counties, the district attorney's salary would increase from $60,300 to $82,256 and the sheriff's from $43,200 to $58,929.

At the bottom of the list is Esmeralda County, where the $47,880 the district attorney now gets would increase to $65,314 and the sheriff's pay would go from $38,400 to $52,382.