The $231.2 million budget for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority – the group charged with the responsibility for attracting visitors to Las Vegas – will be punctuated by 12 months of spending cuts, a hiring freeze and ban on employee overtime.
“We’ve had to adjust in ways we’d never dreamed of,” said board member and MGMG Mirage executive Chuck Bowling, in a board of directors meeting last week.
The loss of $65 million from room tax is creating challenging budget choices, which is 11 percent smaller than the budget for the 2009 fiscal year.
The authority will save $23 million in the upcoming year as a result of a decision to suspend work on a proposed $890 million renovation of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
It will save an additional $2.4 million on salaries, wages and benefits across all departments, thanks in large part to a current hiring freeze that covers 50 open positions and tight overtime restrictions.
Their advertising budget is not immune from the axe, as the authority shaved $3.3 million, leaving a budget of $86.5 million to advertise Las Vegas to the world.
Declines are expected to become less steep in September, which will be one year since the Las Vegas economy went into a nose dive.
Pink is the new red at the Indy 500 this year for an Indy race car owned by Sam Schmidt, right, of Henderson, Nevada. 
Schmidt’s driver for the pink car is an Englishman named Alex Lloyd, left, - aka Pink Lloyd – and the No. 99 HER car will start in the middle of the fourth row of the starting grid with an impressive four-lap average qualifying speed of 222.622 mph. 
