Six days after ratifying an agreement with the Nye County Law Enforcement Association, members of the Nye County Commission Monday discussed how to fund $547,731 in pay increases.

Commissioner Candice Trummell's motion, asking Sheriff Tony DeMeo to take the money out of his $12.9 million budget, was adopted unanimously.

The motion also included a freeze on any new positions for the sheriff's department that weren't already in the budget, despite DeMeo's insistence that he needs more personnel to deal with the growing population of Nye County.

Sheriff's deputies and sergeants won an 8.7 percent increase in salaries and benefits, along with a contract ratification bonus equal to 9.5 percent of their straight pay for the 2005-06 fiscal year, which ended July 1

The increase in salaries and benefits will cost the county an additional $236,000, while the ratification bonus will mean another $310,000 expense, Personnel Administrator Danelle Shamrell told commissioners. The county had only budgeted for a 3.5 percent cost of living adjustment, or $198,000.

Rick Marshall, interim assistant county manager, warned commissioners a total freeze on hiring in the sheriffs department would be a violation of U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing (COP) grants. He added the grants also require commissioners to maintain a certain funding level.

Interim County Manager Ron Williams said the 2006-07 budget already includes $209,000 for funding four new officers. The impact on the contract would be new hires after that, the sheriff said.

"Even if we provided no new positions we'd still be short $233,496.48," Trummell said.

DeMeo said the Pahrump Valley population rose 11 percent last year. Last week 20 new construction sites were registered with the county by one builder, he said. DeMeo said if staffing levels don't increase, services would diminish proportionately with each resident that moves into Nye County. The sheriff said the response time to a given call averages eight minutes and 23 seconds, or a little slower than the national average.

"This is going to start impacting significantly the police patrols in the community," DeMeo said.

Commissioner Joni Eastley asked: "Where would you come up with $220,000 in your budget?"

"Gas is causing us a great deal of problems with the gas increase. A lot of times we're paying more to Western Energetix than we'd pay at the pumps," the sheriff replied. He added the method of buying meals for jail prisoners and a central warehouse of supplies could help lower costs.

DeMeo urged commissioners to see where adjustments could be made to the budget without cutting positions on the street. The sheriff had asked for 15 to 16 new deputies for this fiscal year.

Eastley wanted to postpone a decision until the commission could have more discussions with the sheriff. But Trummell made the motion to freeze any new positions in the sheriff's office, take the additional cost out of DeMeo's budget and ask the sheriff to produce a plan for how the department would absorb the loss of $220,000.

The sheriff warned, "We're going to be looking at making manpower cuts, and I don't think we can afford to do that."

Shamrell said under the agreement that the pay for a starting sheriff's deputy would go up from $15.18 per hour to $16.51 per hour.