LOOKING IN ON: CLARK COUNTY

Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006 | 7:06 a.m.

Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker is mum on whether he'll stay or take a private sector job even as the county prepares to offer him a salary boost to keep him in his current post.

Commissioners are scheduled to decide Wednesday whether to increase the salary range allowed for Walker's position, now capped at $174,091.

County Manager Virginia Valentine said after a meeting of stakeholders Wednesday that she would probably recommend a new salary range to commissioners with a midpoint of $240,000. But she said through a spokesman Friday that figure was only an average of the salaries of directors of the nation's five busiest airports.

After managing the county's airports, including McCarran International, for nine years, Walker announced Nov. 8 that he would resign at the end of January to take an executive position with design, architecture and engineering firm Carter & Burgess.

Valentine said she decided to try to keep Walker at the helm after talking with casino and airline executives, who expressed concerns that the aviation director's salary might not be competitive enough to attract a top-notch candidate.

McCarran fluctuates between being the nation's fifth and sixth busiest airport. Salaries for directors at the nation's 10 busiest airports range from $160,243 to $309,807, according to data collected by the county.

Most county commissioners have expressed a desire for Walker to stay.

For the first time in more than 20 years, gaming firms might have a shot at one of the most lucrative contracts at the airport - slot concessions.

Since 1985 the 1,300 slot machines at McCarran have been operated by a company owned by casino boss Michael Gaughan. The contract has simply been extended without giving other potential bidders a chance.

Now, the airport is asking Clark County commissioners to hire a consultant who will help seek proposals from those interested in the contract, which expires at the end of 2008.

Under the current agreement, the airport nets 63 percent of the revenue generated by the slot machines after payroll costs, license taxes and other fees. For the fiscal year that ended in June, it received $39.6 million from the slots.

Walker said the end of 2008 will be a good time to open up the slot contract to competition because construction on the fourth leg of the airport's new D gates will be complete, creating a temporary lull in expansion until completion of Terminal 3, anticipated to open in 2011.

The airport did not open up the contract in the past because of ongoing expansion, Walker said.

Gaughan has said he plans to compete for the contract. Others surely will, too.

Republican County Commissioners Bruce Woodbury and Chip Maxfield are still pushing for redistricting, and they might find help from an unlikely source - newly elected Democrat Susan Brager.

A proposed redistricting plan, which would have spread the county's population more evenly among the seven districts, had been on the table before the election.

But Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, a Republican and one of the leading proponents of a plan that would have turned her district from a predominately Democratic to a predominately Republican one, lost to Brager.

Brager said she is willing to consider a new redistricting plan , despite concerns that some constituents who just elected her would be moved out of her district.

As long as voters who elected her feel that their interests would still be represented, Brager said she would be willing to look at a redistricting plan early next year.

Woodbury, Maxfield and Brager's districts are among those that have seen big jumps in population, resulting in a 40 percent population variation among districts.