LAS VEGAS -- Expensive dinners, first class travel, five star hotels and thousands in tickets for popular shows. An oil company out of control? A Silicon Valley start-up? No, it's the Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority using taxpayer money to live life to the fullest.
The 8 News NOW I-Team has spent weeks looking over thousands of pages of receipts -- 6,078 pages from the last three fiscal years with the recession in full force. 8 News NOW found dozens of expensive flights, both domestic and around the world, hundreds of dollars a night at luxury resorts and a few more surprises.
Of course, if you are promoting Las Vegas, bringing in big business and conventions, you have to spend money to make money. Right?
Search the LVCVA Expense Report Database
Looking over those 6,000 pages, a pattern quickly emerged for the LVCVA staff -- first class flights, all the way. $1,900 to Pittsburgh for one person, $2,800 for LVCVA President Rossi Ralenkotter to go to a NASCAR awards banquet in New York. Nearly the same amount to head to Maui for golfing and a corporate sponsorship -- a little chardonnay and Patron on the beach, too. $8,000 for business and first class flights to Sweden for Cathy Tull, and you paid for it.
The LVCVA gets their money from taxes paid on every hotel room in Las Vegas. It is taxpayer dollars that have been set aside for promotion.
Sam Noel is an electrician with the authority. Workers have seen 13 months of furloughs, about two a month. He's disappointed with his bosses.
"This doesn't shock me at all, their spending habits," he said.
LVCVA Spokesperson Vince Alberta was the only member of the staff who would speak with 8 News NOW. He defends spending $1,900 for first class flights.
"It depends on what the function was, where we were going, what the time frame was," he said.
Alberta says they are flying in coach now, but that's not entirely true. The current travel policy still allows top staff to fly first class and business flights. And they have.
Over the three fiscal years, staff went to nearly 20 different countries for conferences and office openings and stayed in the best hotels: $632 a night in Dubai, $678 a night in New York, $627 in Tokyo, $552 in Hong Kong, $679 in Australia.
"I think that demonstrates the great value that Las Vegas offers," said Alberta.
Alberta says conferences often ask the staff to stay at the same hotel as a courtesy, no matter the price. Taxpayers picked up the tab for in-room dining and in room movies until 2009, when movies were no longer comped. It only took the worst recession the city has ever seen to make slight changes.
But was it the right idea to fly first class for so long?
"It was the history of this organization and as we looked at the situation, we realized we needed to make a change and adapt and that's what we did," said Alberta.
But board figurehead Oscar Goodman says there still should be perks.
"During the good days, if you're flying and you have a speech that you have to make when you get off the plane, I think you should have the ability to be rested," he said.
Service Employees Union chief Al Martinez looked over the reports, too. He is upset the spending has gone on while he sits in negotiations defending workers like Noel.
"When you hear this piece here, what a minute. Where did this come from?" he said.
And then there were the event tickets. Meyer spent around $250 for tickets to Oktoberfest in Germany. Sports Marketing Director Julian Dugas took golf executives to Alicia Keys for $520, ESPN execs to the Ricky Hatton fight for $4,100 and University of California Head Football Coach Jeff Tedford to David Foster for $557.
But why would an out-of-state football coach be given tickets?
"Look, we can go through the 6,000 pages and I'm sure you'll have a question on every one of those documents about understanding what we do," said Alberta.
We never got a straight answer, but the event tickets may fly against the newer policy, demanding that gifts must be "nominal in cost." There were no restrictions in the past.
And for Sam Noel, he understands the city has to promote the Las Vegas lifestyle. "But there's no reason to shortchange the workers while they're doing this," he said.
Nothing but the best for some, while tax money pays for it all.
The LVCVA was transparent with every records request 8 News NOW made and gave us every scrap of paper for free. But the transparency ended when we asked questions about late night drinks in nightclubs, outings with French college girls, junkets for staff and big dinner receipts.
Over the last three years, the LVCVA has been going on "site visits" with $475 bottle service at the Palms, "planning dinners" for $283 a person and $982 in booze to celebrate new flights from Mexico.
"I just wonder if that happened on one of my furlough days, you know? I didn't get a phone call," said Sam Noel. "That 10 percent pay cut did a lot of damage."
Noel was one of those furloughed employees. Two days a month adds up.
The LVCVA paid $150 for Japanese filet, dined on escargot and Baron Rothschild, and bought a $184 bottle of wine. Was it a good return on investment?
"When we are having clients in the destination or entertaining clients, we want them to experience a variety of different amenities and attractions at different price points," said Alberta.
But not all of the clients are out-of-state conventions, bringing in money.
The LVCVA spent nearly $100,000 in recent years on big events at bowl games, PBR and NASCAR, but mostly as parties for local heavyweights -- the head of the Taxicab Authority, Las Vegas Metro Police administrators, and gaming executives.
So why are we spending tens of thousands of dollars to give food and alcohol to locals during NASCAR?
"It's part of our mission to work with the private industry, including private industry in southern Nevada and private industry abroad," said Alberta.
In order to "promote the upcoming China Cultural Day," International Marketing Director John Bischoff, local execs and other LVCVA staff went to Margaritaville for just drinks, no food. But are 10 Jager Bombs at Chinese Cultural Day at Margaritaville part of being a good steward of taxpayer money?
"I am confident that the money this organization spends, $170 million is our operating budget, generates a significant return on investment," said Alberta.
Unclear as well what return came on three different occasions when Julian Dugas took sports executives for drink after drink -- 15, 20 shots of Patron tequila, and more Jager Bombs.
Twenty-one drinks for four people at the Hard Rock, an average of just over five drinks per person and 40 drinks for six at the Espy Awards in Los Angeles, an average of six-and-a-half per person. Alberta condones all of it.
"There are certain situations, given the environment and the setting, where at a special event or some activity where there will be alcohol consumption," he said.
But the one that topped them all was a night at Piero's with NBA execs -- 45 drinks for six people. That's seven and a half drinks each. Al Martinez was floored. If he did that, he says, he would be out of office.
Mayor Goodman could not defend it, even given his fun-loving drinking persona.
"I'm an expert on that," he said. "I don't necessarily approve of binge drinking when you're doing business. I'm not going to condone binge drinking. I'd be foolish to do that."
Then there was John Bischoff's discussions with French college students about the "Las Vegas brand" in France for a report they were writing. He took the five women to dinner with drinks, and then to the nightclubs Moon, Ghostbar and the Playboy Club, getting shots at 12:30 a.m., at 1:25 a.m., and 1:35 a.m.
At first, Alberta defended it. He often pivoted around our direct questions, repeating the Authority's defense for spending.
"Do we believe a $1,400 dinner is worth investment when we're generating $130 million for the local economy? We do," he said.
But the same talking point came up again and again.
"We get $15 for every dollar we invest," he said. "For every dollar we invest, we're getting $15 return."
So we looked through the final French homework assignment. The LVCVA was barely mentioned and Bischoff's name wasn't even spelled correctly.
Alberta says legitimate business does get done at nightclubs. After repeated questions, Alberta admitted this wasn't right.
"I think in this instance we could have used better judgment," he said.
But he was quick to note that internal audits review approve expense reports. But unlike 8 News NOW, the auditors don't even look at every report, only random samples, as few as 18 percent in a given quarter. Most of the audits were completely clean with few complaints.
"We have guidelines that are in place. And those guidelines are monitored on a regular basis by our finance department," said Alberta.
It appears some of the expenses violate current travel and entertainment policy. There are no set restrictions on dollar amounts for food or the number of drinks. Staff should use "good judgment." But wine is restricted to $100 a bottle, even though there was that $184 bottle of Duckhorn Bordeaux wine and the $495 vodka bottle service.
Both were approved by management and weren't questioned by the audit committee.
Martinez can't understand why this all of this spending would happen when workers are on furlough.
"To see this kind of stuff here, this is totally outrageous. I just -- my goodness. I'm still really shocked," he said.
According to those audit reports, the stacks of documents represent $7.1 million in expenses domestic and abroad.
