Golden exit at LVCVA?

Scandal-tainted CEO Ralenkotter wants parachute before finalizing retirement

Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Rossi Ralenkotter is taking steps to collect a retirement settlement that could cost taxpayers tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, even as Las Vegas police conduct a criminal investigation into the tourism agency’s spending practices.

Ralenkotter is the third-highest-paid public official in the state, with a salary and benefits package valued at $863,000 annually. He does not have an employment contract, and the LVCVA has no legal obligation to pay Ralenkotter a retirement settlement. Based on his tenure, Ralenkotter will begin collecting a state pension of about $400,000 a year upon retirement.

He has hired an attorney to negotiate a retirement payment with the authority’s 14-member board of directors, which includes local elected officials and gaming industry representatives. The board has evaluated Ralenkotter annually and awarded him pay raises and bonuses.

His retirement date has not been set, and he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he is no closer to developing his expectations of a retirement settlement than he was at the board’s June 12 meeting, when he announced plans to retire.

“I’m still just analyzing everything and waiting to

make a decision, so I’m just in the same position,” Ralenkotter said as he left the boardroom. “I come to work every day. I’m still in charge.”

Ralenkotter said that when he’s ready to move on, he will schedule a session with the board’s seven-member compensation committee.

“There will be a conversation with the comp committee, and when I make a decision as to when the date will be, then we’ll coordinate around that,” he said. “I have to look at my schedule and what’s happening at the building (the Las Vegas Convention Center). But we haven’t made anything definitive yet.”

The compensation committee’s chairman, Wynn Las Vegas LLC President Maurice Wooden, declined to be interviewed by the Review-Journal in late June. He didn’t attend the July 10 board meeting.

Other members of the compensation committee — vice chairwoman Mary Beth Sewald, CEO of the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce; Clark County Commissioners Larry Brown and Lawrence Weekly; MGM Resorts International executive Chuck Bowling; Caesars Entertainment Corp. executive Tom Jenkin; and Boyd Gaming Corp. executive Bill Noonan — either declined comment or did not return calls or emails requesting information on a retirement settlement for Ralenkotter.

Unanswered questions

Ralenkotter, 71, has led the LVCVA since 2004 and has been a staff member since 1973. He said at the June 12 meeting that, after reflecting on his accomplishments and his battle with cancer, he was ready to talk about retirement.

He has rejected multiple requests to be interviewed about his retirement and about an audit involving $90,000 of Southwest Airlines gift cards secretly purchased by the LVCVA, which is funded primarily by Clark County hotel room taxes. The cards were used for personal travel by Ralenkotter and Weekly, but $50,000 is not accounted for.

Ralenkotter and his family used $16,207 of cards for personal travel, but when an audit determined the cards were paid for with tax mon-

Rossi Ralenkotter