CARSON CITY -- The Las Vegas Monorail will continue to be exempt from paying sales taxes following an 8-0 vote Friday by the state Tax Commission, although one commissioner took shots at Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibson for the amount of money he made when he managed the company.

Commissioner George Kelesis questioned why Transit Systems Management received $36 million during the five years it managed the monorail company and why Gibson was paid $200,000 a year as a director.

"Here is the full-time mayor of Henderson, who is a full-time lawyer and who is earning $200,000 attending one meeting a month," Kelesis said.

Kelesis added that it "insults my intelligence" that Transit Systems Management should be paid the kind of money it was paid when the monorail has lost $47 million.

"Will someone tell me what is Mayor Gibson's expertise (on monorail systems)?" he asked.

But none of the other commissioners made any negative comments about Gibson. While Kelesis dominated the meeting with his views, they asked only a couple of minor questions about Transit Systems Management, an outside vendor that managed the monorail from 2000 until earlier this year, when it was absorbed into the Las Vegas Monorail Co.

Gibson actually was chairman and chief executive officer of Transit Systems Management from January 2004 to July 2005. Earlier he had been a member of the monorail company's board of directors.

Contacted in Las Vegas, John Haycock, chairman of the board of Las Vegas Monorail Co., said Gibson did an "exceptional job" during his year and an half running the management company. He added Gibson served full time in the position.

The monorail has been plagued by problems, opening to the public on July 15, 2004, after several delays. Metal parts fell from trains on three different occasions in 2004. The monorail was closed down for 107 days last year for repairs.

Current ridership of 28,800 passengers a day is far below earlier predictions of 50,000 riders per day by the end of 2005. Bob Broadbent, the former Clark County commissioner who secured funding for the monorail and ran Transit Systems Management, died in 2003 and left the company without a strong leader, Haycock said.

"Bob was a guy who was not easy to replace and in my opinion Jim Gibson did as good of job as anyone possibly could have," Haycock said.

Gibson did not return calls, but his campaign spokesman, Greg Bortolin, said the mayor took the monorail job to straighten out problems.

"It was the mayor who put the current structure in place," he said. "It was Mayor Gibson's leadership that got the monorail back on track. Jim Gibson was hired to come in and clean up the mess."

A state law gives a sales tax exemption to charitable, religious and educational companies. In an earlier meeting, Kelesis objected to the exemption for the monorail because the company does not make any charitable contributions.

But the law allows exemptions to organizations that provide public services, such as mass transportation, that normally are provided by a local government.

The Department of Taxation examined the monorail's expenditures and compensation paid to executives and determined they were reasonable.

Curtis Myles, a former Regional Transportation Authority executive who is the monorail's new chief executive officer, earns $324,000 a year.

Las Vegas Monorail lawyer Jim Wadhams told commissioners that Gov. Kenny Guinn must review and approve spending by the monorail company. The monorail was financed by a tax-exempt $650 million industrial revenue bond approved by the state Board of Finance.

Taxation Director Chuck Chinnock said the exemption from paying sales taxes granted the Las Vegas Monorail should be continued because state law allows such an exemption.

Several members said there is nothing they can do now about payments to the Transit Systems Management, but they are satisfied with how the company is managed.

"Because they merged, they got rid of the problem," said Kelesis who seconded the motion to continue the monorail's tax exempt status. "They did a beautiful shuffle."

Chairman Tom Sheets noted the monorail now carries more than 10 million passengers a year.