EDITORIAL: Lavish spending by Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority merits an audit

It’s no secret that an appointment to the panel overseeing the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is a plum and coveted assignment for local elected officials. What’s not to like about international travel, nice gifts and expensive meals in return for a little bit of glad-handing?

Take Lawrence Weekly, the Clark County commissioner who chairs the authority’s 14-member board of directors. Over the past three years, a Review-Journal investigation revealed, Mr. Weekly received about $33,000 worth of free trips, meals and gifts as a result of his seat. The largesse included a $11,000 flight to South Africa, a Bluetooth speaker and a Fitbit. He also enjoyed $1,062 in concert tickets that he admitted had nothing to do with authority businesses.

Mr. Weekly is hardly alone. The examination of authority spending, by R-J reporters Arthur Kane, Brian Joseph and Jeff German, discovered that “over the past three years, the authority paid at least $697,000 for alcohol ... and hundreds of thousands more for concert tickets, skyboxes, banquets, exotic car rides and jewelry for employees.”

Keep in mind, this is all tax money. The authority has a $251 million annual budget, funded by a levy on those who stay in Clark County resorts, hotels and motels. About one-third of the money generated by the room tax, which can be as high as 13 percent, is diverted to the agency.

In the interest of disclosure, the family of Sheldon Adelson owns the Review-Journal. Mr. Adelson operates the Sands Expo and Convention Center, a private venture that often competes with the facilities owned by the publicly funded convention authority. And, in fact, this newspaper has a record dating back almost three decades — long before the Adelson family purchased the Review-Journal — of shedding light on the extravagant and opulent spending habits that have long characterized this agency.

Defenders of the authority, including its president and CEO Rossi Ralenkotter, point to the city’s prosperous convention business and its thriving tourist trade as evidence of its success. Gary Shapiro, who runs the company that puts on the Consumer Electronics Show every January, insisted last week that, “Entertainment spending is part of business success — this is not news, rather its standard business practice across most if not all industries.”

Perhaps. But the fact that Southern Nevada remains one of the world’s most popular tourist and convention destinations doesn’t give the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority a blank check with taxpayer funds.

Republican lawmakers in Carson City, who might usually be inclined to target lavish government spending, ran for the hills in the wake the R-J’s report, terrified of alienating the state’s most powerful special interests. A more inspiring response would have been to call for the obvious: a comprehensive outside audit of how the authority spends the money it receives from taxpayers.

The authority has no doubt done plenty of outstanding work. That shouldn’t shield it, however, from oversight and accountability.