VisitPittsburgh's pay plan raises hackles
To: VisitPittsburgh directors and administrators
From: Heyl Consultants LLC
Re: Compensation kerfuffle
Focus on the furries.
To quell the controversy that has engulfed your tourism agency over the supposedly lavish salaries and bonuses paid to upper management, you have to remind people of your most significant achievements. The furries certainly fall into that category.
Were it not for VisitPittsburgh's efforts, hundreds of furries dressed as large chipmunks, foxes and otters wouldn't have arrived in Pittsburgh every summer since 2005 for Anthrocon. As you're aware, that's the convention for anthropomorphically obsessed people fond of dressing up as chipmunks, foxes and otters.
Emphasizing your successes is the best way to blunt critics such as Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.
The killjoy isn't just upset that your executive chairman, Joe McGrath, pulled in nearly $400,000 last year and will do so again this year. Fitzzgerald's also irked that those he considers to be well-compensated employees at your quasi-public agency are eligible for performance bonuses worth as much as 25 percent of their salaries.
Fitzgerald isn't the only elected official upset. County Controller Chelsa Wagner is examining several past VisitPittsburgh audits. State Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, labeled the agency “bloated.”
The politicians appear intent on piling on. Thankfully, we have developed an action plan to respond to these scurrilous attacks. We recommend VisitPittsburgh immediately implement the following strategies:
• Make people aware that VisitPittsburgh is funded primarily through a hotel-motel room occupancy tax paid by out-of-towners. Suggest that any local person upset over how that money is spent should have to explain why they regularly get a room at the East Exit Motel.
• Stress that agency directors approved the compensation packages only because companies and organizations place great emphasis on a tourism agency's senior staff salaries when deciding where to hold their conventions.
• Provide evidence of McGrath's commitment to the job by disclosing that he continues to work for VisitPittsburgh even after taking another position in July. He was hired as an account development specialist with GainingEdge, an Australia-based company specializing in convention industry consulting.
⢠Continue to refuse to release VisitPittsburgh's latest financial filings with the Internal Revenue Service. Stonewalling nosy reporters will force them to concentrate on other, more positive aspects of the agency — such as how often it has lured the furries to town.
• Don't dwell on the fact that in 2010, the most recent year for which the agency's financial information is publicly available, the agency doled out more in salaries ($4.8 million) than it spent on all other expenses combined ($4.3 million).
Instead, focus on the fact that the $4.8 million was used to pay a staff of 52. When you do the math, the average compensation package for a VisitPittsburgh employee totaled a paltry $92,307.
Why should any fur fly over that?
Eric Heyl is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7857 or eheyl@tribweb.com.
