Visit Baton Rouge President and CEO Paul Arrigo is up for another raise. On Thursday, a VBR personnel committee voted to recommend giving Arrigo a $6,300 raise annually, which would bring his salary for 2015 to $163,000. The raise still needs to be approved by the agency’s full board, which will take up the decision at its meeting next week.
Last December, the board awarded Arrigo a $4,500 raise to bring his salary to $156,700 for this year. That followed a $15,000 bonus Arrigo was awarded in April of last year, and a $2,000 raise for 2013.
The agency’s spending plan for 2014 totaled $4,118,000, with 43% of that composed of wages and employee benefits. The vast majority of the agency’s revenues come from a portion of the city-parish tax charged on hotel stays.
The committee approved the raise after reviewing Arrigo’s performance by considering how many room nights were booked over the past year and how much revenue was brought in. The committee also set a range between 95,000 and 100,000 as the new goal for how many room nights they aim to have booked by visitors to the city in 2015. —Kelly Connelly
