EDITORIAL: Taxpayers deserve lots of answers from LVCVA

Like a persistent and unpleasant microbe, Rossi Ralenkotter’s platinum parachute is the gift that keeps on giving local taxpayers a recurring case of gastrointestinal distress.

It was bad enough last August when the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board bestowed a $455,000 retirement package on Mr. Ralenkotter, the agency’s outgoing CEO, despite the fact that he was under investigation for misusing airline gift cards. Less than a year later, however, LVCVA officials insist on rubbing taxpayers’ noses in it.

Mr. Ralenkotter’s sloppy kiss from the convention authority board — which was in addition to his $300,000 annual pension for life through the state’s Public Employees’ Retirement System — included a sweetheart consulting contract that guaranteed him $270,000 over 18 months. After all, board members didn’t want to force Mr. Ralenkotter into a starvation diet.

So far, the authority has paid Mr. Ralenkotter $120,000 for nine months of work. But as the Review-Journal’s Jeff German reported this week, board members don’t appear too concerned about what Mr. Ralenkotter is doing to earn his generous paychecks.

Mr. Ralenkotter’s contract “requires that he submit monthly written reports,” Mr. German reported. “Records provided by the LVCVA show that Ralenkotter has turned in only four reports” since October. “Ralenkotter has not submitted anything detailing his work for the months of February, March and April,” Mr. German found. In addition, he “provided no in-depth analysis of tourism issues” for his successor, Steve Hill.

So what exactly is he doing on the taxpayer dime?

Mr. Hill refused to be interviewed. But Lori Nelson-Kraft, the authority’s senior vice president of communications and government affairs, issued a statement saying Mr. Ralenkotter provided Mr. Hill with personal “updates and insights.”

Mr. Ralenkotter worked for the convention authority — which spent $440 million in room tax money last year — for more than four decades. He no doubt harbors a wealth of knowledge about travel and tourism. But would it be presumptuous to point out that the lack of interest by authority officials and board members about the details of Mr. Ralenkotter’s work exposes this consulting contract as the good-old-boy cronyism everybody knew it to be?

“Taxpayers should ask lots of questions, and they should get lots of answers,” Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, told Mr. German. “Perhaps he is contributing enormously to the economic climate of Las Vegas, but people have a right to know what he’s doing.”

Mr. Hill has made strides since Mr. Ralenkotter’s departure to emphasize transparency and accountability and to rein in excessive spending. But clearly Mr. Hill still has plenty of work to do.