Can you guess what government enterprise has that policy? If you stated that organization known as the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau, AKA the LVCVA, you would be right!
A Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority committee has recently recommended that its President and CEO, Steve Hill, receive a 7.5 percent pay increase and a 40 percent bonus for the supposedly wonderful work he did in the past year. Similar to what he has received in previous years.
How does someone get that kind of a bonus and raise? Having witnessed one of their “Compensation Committee” meetings myself, I will break it down for you.
Here is the basic conversation they have.
LVCVA committee: So, Mister CEO. What is your job?
CEO Answer: To manage an organization created to protect and manage the Las Vegas brand. To help bring more tourism and convention business to Las Vegas
LVCVA committee: And did you do that?
CEO’s answer: Yes, I did.
LVCVA committee: We will now give you ninety minutes to tell us how wonderful you are.
(Ninety minutes later, and not one question from the committee)
LVCVA Commitee: Now, Mister CEO, For doing what you were hired to do, we, the board of directors, will reward you again with an outrageous bonus and pay increase without ever asking you any questions. Congratulations!
The end
Thats is the jist of the “Compensation Committee meeting”. They were tasked with giving the CEO a Performance Review.
Where was the “review?” This was the first time I had ever seen a performance review where the person being “reviewed” gets to talk without being questioned or asked for any real facts to back up his claims of superiority. Not a one!
At the meeting I attended, the CEO spent 90 minutes telling the board about what HE did to bring tourism to Las Vegas. Nobody else; it was all HIM, Him, HIM, and not one board member even asked one question about anything. They listened, smiled, and gave him the pay raise and the bonus for doing what he was originally paid to do.
That CEO was later charged with and not really penalized for fraud and theft. He used items in the LVCVA warehouse for his own gain. This was right after he and his staff let it be known that they should not have to be insulted by being questioned about the missing and unaccounted-for items/funds.
As part of his penalty (?), he had to resign from the organization (but kept all the bonuses and benefits). He also got to choose his own successor!
The pay package was approved by the full LVCVA board on July 11, Hill will receive a $33,570 annual raise to $481,179 a year PLUS a bonus of $179,043.
The LVCVA management thinks the room tax that funds the organization is just a large pot of money for them to use as they see fit without any accountability.
To them, the LVCVA exists not always for the betterment of Las Vegas Tourism but ALWAYS for the betterment of the LVCVA top management (and MGM).
Meanwhile, the LVCVA board continues to look the other way while enriching the CEO without question.
And they wonder why I call the LVCVA a criminal organization!
- Las Vegas Review-Journal Investigates the LVCVA (April 2019)
