EX-LVCVA leader sought PTO payout
Severance letter contradicts earlier statement
Retired Las Vegas tourism boss Rossi Ralenkotter said he did not intend to cash out his accrued paid time off, but newly released records show that his attorney asked for more than $234,000 in untaken leave as part of a nearly $1.2 million severance package.
That request included about 300 hours, worth $65,000, that Ralenkotter should have reported as personal, sick or vacation days but did not claim as paid time off, a Las Vegas Review-journal analysis determined.
Ralenkotter, who retired as CEO of the publicly funded Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority on Aug. 31, declined to discuss his attorney’s severance request letter.
“I have no intention of talking to you,” he said when reached by phone last week.
The letter contradicted a statement he released last month in which he said he “never expected to be compensated” for his accrued paid time off. Ralenkotter ultimately received a retirement package worth about
LVCVA
$700,000 less than his initial request.
Ralenkotter had no employment contract, and the agency had no obligation to pay him a retirement settlement. The agency also had a policy that prevented severance payouts. But board members still negotiated a retirement package that included part of his 2017 bonus, a consulting contract and separation pay.
The severance negotiations took place as Las Vegas police launched an investigation into the agency’s handling of $90,000 in gift cards purchased from Southwest Airlines. An audit found that Ralenkotter had used about $17,000 in cards on personal travel for himself, his wife and other family members. He paid back the money and said he did not intend to commit wrongdoing.
The Nevada Commission on Ethics is also investigating the misuse of the gift cards.
Shifting the tax burden
During negotiations, authority legal counsel Luke Puschnig, whose annual goals and compensation were reviewed by Ralenkotter, suggested that the agency cover the taxes on Ralenkotter’s severance pay.
Ralenkotter’s attorney, Terry Coffing, had complained that paying his severance as wages instead of retirement would increase Ralenkotter’s tax liability. Ralenkotter received $863,000 in total compensation in 2017, including $440,430 in base salary and a $208,000 bonus, and is now collecting a state pension worth at least $350,000 per year for the rest of his life.
Puschnig responded in an email to Coffing on May 24: “We can try to ‘gross it up’ for him, in other words, pay him the amount but also pay him for the taxes paid.”
But Coffing, who was seeking more than $1 million in severance for Ralenkotter, recognized that shifting Ralenkotter’s tax burden to taxpayers would look bad.
“The optics on a gross up are not good,” Coffing wrote. Coffing did not return calls seeking comment.
Puschnig said in an interview that he was not proposing to pay for the taxes but was merely setting up parameters for the negotiations. His emails make clear that Puschnig could not “bind” the authority board to any severance proposal Puschnig and Coffing were discussing.
“Those were just discussions between attorneys,” he said. “I don’t believe the gross up would have worked.”
Severance negotiations
On Aug. 14, the convention authority board approved a $455,000 retirement package that included a $15,000-a-month consulting contract for 18 months, separation pay and part of his 2017 bonus, records show.
At first, Ralenkotter wanted 52 weeks of salary with a 6 percent salary increase that he expected to receive next year worth $455,866. That would have been in addition to a $233,433 bonus, the paid time off and a longevity bonus of $41,318, a memo from Coffing shows. The request included a $10,000-a-month consulting contract and Ralenkotter’s personal car, technology and other allowances.
Curtis Kalin, a spokesman for the Washington-based conservative watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, said a public official requesting that much severance is improper.
“The numbers in this case are completely over the top,” he said. “For someone who was making around a million dollars a year in salary and benefits to demand hundreds of thousands of dollars more in retirement benefits should strike taxpayers as extraordinarily self-indulgent and not just a little bit greedy.”
PTO payout
Ralenkotter’s request included payment for more than seven weeks of paid time off that wasn’t used when calendars and flight records show he was on vacation.
In May, Coffing requested in emails and memos that the agency pay for Ralenkotter’s accrued leave time.
Steve Hill, who replaced Ralenkotter as CEO of the convention authority at the beginning of September, said staffers should report any vacation time they take.
“When they’re off, they should