County manager declines pay raise for third year in a row

Virginia Valentine guided Clark County through another troubled year and again received no bump in pay.

The county manager Tuesday declined a pay raise for the third year in a row, freezing her annual salary at $207,000. She had told all of the managers under her to forgo pay raises .

"I think it would be completely inappropriate to ask for any salary increase," Valentine said during her evaluation.

Valentine reeled off a list of cost-cutting moves done to offset a shortfall that had approached $200 million earlier this year because of falling tax revenues.

They included laying off almost 300 workers, eliminating a couple of dozen management jobs and freezing more than 1,200 vacant jobs.

County officials disbanded several fire crews to create a relief staff to fill in for absent co-workers and reduce overtime.

And the county will not use an outside lobbyist in next year's legislative session but will send an in-house lobbying team to Carson City, Valentine said.

A couple of commissioners said that though she runs an organization with 10,500 full-time workers, Valentine is one of the lowest-paid government managers in the region.

Last year, Jacob Snow, Regional Transportation Commission manager, was paid $285,000 to run a 277-person agency. And Rossi Ralenkotter, president of Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, made $322,000 to lead a 572-worker agency.

Commissioner Tom Collins said if times were better, he gladly would give Valentine a $50,000 raise and a bonus.