Even with funding, it's hard to recruit for county positions

The challenges meeting Douglas County don't all have to do with finding money to pay for law enforcement.

"We have two different challenges," said County Manager Dan Holler on Thursday. "We're short deputies and then there's the challenge of how to bring them in and fund it."

Advisory question 1 on November's general election ballot will ask voters to support a .5 percent sales tax increase with the funding to be used for additional facilities and personnel in the law enforcement and criminal justice system.

The initiative asks for voters to OK an increase in the present 6.75 percent sales tax which would ultimately require approval by the Nevada State Legislature.

"Not all issues are ballot questions," said Holler. "When you come into that profession (law enforcement officer) and you get $35-40,000 a year, you can't afford to buy a house here. Nationally, that's not a bad salary, but in Douglas County ... It's a much broader challenge, irrespective of the ballot question."

Holler said that even though the benefits are competitive, it's hard to enlist employees to be engineers, fire department personnel, as well as law enforcement in Douglas County.

"It's hard to get qualified people and if we bring them in, we have to train them," Holler said. "If the funding was there (as a result of passing the ballot question), we could bring in 5-8 people in per year and put them in training."

Holler said those people should have an average of two years' training. The county could utilize transferred law enforcement officers who still have to be trained.

"They learn our program and how the department works and learn about the community," he said.

Some programs are focused on training jail personnel while field training focuses on the officers going on the street beats. And Holler said some people prefer to work in the jails.

"Some people want to be jail officers their whole career and that's fine," he said. "We have great people there.

"What are the pros and cons of this stuff? The affordable housing question comes up. Even if we have the money to hire, we have other issues of the county to address," Holler said.

"The main thing is we have challenges but there's also a need for growth in law enforcement and support (for law enforcement) and there's a need to fund it."