Money talks: What Las Vegas-area cities spend on communication

These days, local government doesn’t just deliver your water, maintain your parks and pave your roads. Running a city has come to mean running a media campaign, too.

At a minimum, local governments typically staff communication teams to push out press releases, field reporter calls, post blogs, take photos and manage social media. Often cities recruit straight from the news outlets that cover them. But it gets fancier — TV studios, cable shows, their own channels.

Enter North Las Vegas, the cash-strapped city that’s fighting for a new image.

Most know the town by its bleak headlines, the fact that its dire financial situation almost forced it into receivership, the state’s broadly untested bankruptcy alternative.

After John Lee became mayor in 2013, the city started rebranding in small ways. Lee often tells people he was hired to fix the city. He was, of course, elected just like those before him.

In May, Lee personally brought on Nevada Week in Review host Mitch Fox. He bills the city as a consultant, making $125,000 a year with no benefits. The previous city spokeswoman, Juliet Casey, made $75,000 in 2012.

Since the ex-broadcaster came aboard, he has struck a deal with the city of Las Vegas to broadcast City Council meetings on Las Vegas’ channel. Fox also recently unveiled a North Las Vegas “television magazine” called “All Points North” to showcase the city in a roughly six-minute video program, which will also air on the city’s channel. It’s a new effort and Fox said he hopes to produce the program regularly, though right now there isn’t a concrete schedule as production depends on time-constraints.

The annual North Las Vegas communications budget is $377,823, with three full-time employees: Fox, his executive secretary who makes $63,611 and also does reception and veterans commission work, and a graphic artist who makes $89,748, while also spending half a day each week working in the mail room.

Fox said he would like to eventually add another person to his team who would lead outreach activities for the Latino community and work with Hispanic media outlets.

Other Las Vegas Valley government public relation machines are more robust. Las Vegas and Clark County both run television channels. Henderson toyed with the idea of getting into the TV game in 2000, when Las Vegas was launching its channel, but ultimately the space the city considered turning into a TV studio became storage space.

Communication with the public regarding fire and police is typically done separately, though in Henderson it’s all managed by one communication office.

CLARK COUNTY

Clark County’s office of public communications has a staff of 11 full-time employees. Those include Erik Pappa, the department’s director, two public information officers, an administrative assistant, a switchboard operator, and five staffers with the county’s Clark County Television Channel 4, CCTV. The station produces television shows with information about county government and program and airs government meetings and also produces internal training videos. In the television shows, county department heads and commissioners frequently answer questions in an interview-style format. The office also has three part-timers.

Personnel costs total $1.2 million annually, which includes salaries and benefits. The department also has a budget of $70,000 for services and supplies, and a capital budget of $25,000.

“We are very lean from a PIO (public information officer) perspective,” Pappa wrote in an email to the Review-Journal.

The highest paid staffer in the department is Pappa, who joined the county in 2002. In 2013, he was paid a base salary of $115,945.60. In addition, payroll records show, Pappa earned $7,300.69 in longevity pay, a perk for employees with more than eight years of service. Pappa’s future successor won’t be eligible for longevity pay — the county has eliminated it for future management-level staff since Pappa started at the county.

Pappa also received a $6,000 vehicle allowance for the year — $500 a month. His total salary package, not including benefits, was $129,246 in 2013.

The department, like all local governments, is doing work that didn’t exist a decade ago: management of social media sites, which post a variety of information: press releases, voting registration campaign kickoff details and photos from park dedications among them.

It’s not all routine government stuff, either. The county’s social media sites can do sexy celebrity news too — provided there’s a relevant county connection.

The county’s Facebook page features its Nov. 5 declaration of “Britney Day on the Las Vegas Strip,” complete with a photo of the smiling pop performer Britney Spears receiving a key to the Strip from commission Chairman Steve Sisolak.

Different public relations staffers handle media requests for McCarran International Airport and University Medical Center, which are both operated by the county.

LAS VEGAS

Las Vegas relies on 22 full-time employees for its communication team. The department has a budget of $3.3 million.

The team is made up of four graphic artists, whose work includes everything from business card design to large sign design; six public affairs employees, who handle social media, Web content management, marketing, publications, media relations and employee communications; and 10 KCLV-TV staff. On top of that there’s also an administrative secretary and the department’s director.

The department’s director, David Riggleman, made $139,000 in 2013, according to Transparent Nevada, an online database of public employee salaries.

The city’s 24/7 TV operation runs on a budget of about $1.9 million. The channel hosts an array of city programs, as well as content by other agencies such as Las Vegas police, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the Springs Preserve, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the Clark County Regional Flood District, the Nevada Cooperative Extension, and the U.S. armed forces.

Unlike the county’s channel, Las Vegas’ TV station brings in about $100,000 through some of those non-city productions such as The Flood Channel for the flood district and underwriting from the community for closed-captioning.

HENDERSON

Henderson’s Communications &Council Support Office has the largest budget of any local government’s at $3.5 million.

But that figure includes the salaries of staffers who work as aides to the mayor and City Council members. That makes exact comparisons tricky, since such employees in other cities aren’t part of the communications offices. Henderson’s central communications shop also handles inquiries about police and fire emergencies — duties that in other governments are handled by the individual departments.

Henderson has a population of 270,811, compared with 226,877 in North Las Vegas, 603,488 in Las Vegas and more than 2 million in Clark County, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The “Place to Call Home” also has a fleet of five graphic artists — a salary cost of $329,037.

In charge of the multimillion-dollar operation is Bud Cranor, director of communications and council support, who makes $136,000 a year. Part of what he oversees includes the public information and marketing manager and four public information officers who each make $97,152.

Contact Bethany Barnes at bbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Find her on Twitter: @betsbarnes. Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-405-9781. Find him on Twitter: @BenBotkin1. Contact James DeHaven at jdehaven@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3839. Find him on Twitter: @JamesDeHaven. Contact Eric Hartley at ehartley@reviewjournal.com or 702-550-9229. Find him on Twitter: @ethartley.