VisitLex wants more of your money. The publicly funded tourism bureau is asking the Urban County Council to approve a new Tourism Improvement District — a 2% assessment on hotel rooms that would funnel an estimated $2.1 million per year into marketing, consultants, and destination branding. Before the Council votes, it should ask a simple question: Where is all the money going now?
Because VisitLex won’t say. The bureau is currently requesting 60 business days to hand over two years of credit card statements — a delay that would conveniently push disclosure past the public hearings on the very tax it’s requesting. Two open records appeals are still pending with the Kentucky Attorney General. VisitLex has claimed that no contracts exist for a $60,000-a-year lobbying retainer it is actively paying, that no internal communications exist about the seven registered lobbyists on its payroll, and that the public doesn’t need to see the names of the employees it compensates with tax dollars. This is not the behavior of an agency that believes it can withstand scrutiny. It is the behavior of one that knows it cannot.
And the records we do have tell the story plainly enough. VisitLex’s president earned $340,536 last year — more than double the mayor’s salary — including a $58,000 bonus drawn from hotel tax revenue. Eight employees split $155,816 in bonuses despite reporting a year earlier that such payments may violate the Kentucky Constitution. Between 2022 and 2024, employees charged $427,000 to agency credit cards, much of it at restaurants and bars. The bureau employs seven lobbyists through a government affairs firm. Its total payroll is $2.4 million. Its budget is $16 million. And now it wants $2.1 million more…