ORLANDO, Fla. — How high is too high for a salary backed by county dollars?
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Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings responded to our investigation, and said he’s concerned Visit Orlando’s salaries are too high—yet again.
9 Investigates found salary after salary well into the six-figure range among executives at Visit Orlando, the area’s official destination marketing organization. It prides itself on making Orlando America’s most-visited destination. It advertises the mom-and-pop shops to the big theme parks.
Over the years, the organization reported a larger number of what’s labeled as “executive management” and their “highest compensated employees,” based on tax documents. With it, records show the organization is spending a larger total amount of money on them.
Tax documents show the organization reported nine of those positions in 2015, costing about $2.6 million dollars a year. But this year, county documents show the not-for-profit was set to spend nearly double that, $4.1 million dollars, compensating it’s top 13 executives and employees.
“Comparatively speaking, when you look at the size and scope of responsibility, I think the salaries are likely where they need to be,” Gamble said.
Mike Gamble, the CEO of SearchWide Global, works with Visit Orlando to recruit its executives. He says the salaries are fair, given what he called the “sophistication and complexity of the job.”
Read: Visit Orlando facing audit after County Commissioners cut funding last month
However, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings sent a statement to 9 Investigates saying, “I remain concerned about salaries rising too high.” Demings noted changes in the labor market.
Demings wrote specifically about CEO Cassandra Matej’s compensation.
Demings says in 2020, when Visit Orlando was looking for its next CEO, he told their board of directors they needed to decrease the new CEO’s salary. This was after the last CEO’s salary reached $630,000.
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County records show Matej was hired in 2021 making a base salary of $395,000. But just over the last three years, her salary has increased by nearly $190,000.
Her total compensation with salary and benefits is listed as $631,467.
Her current salary is just shy of what the previous CEO was earning. It’s even double what the Orange County Mayor makes in a year, according to county records.
Visit Orlando’s Board Chair Terry Prather called their wages competitive.
“We don’t want the second best. We want the best because that’s one of the reasons that Orlando is the number one destination in the country because we have the best DMO in the country. And this is where people want to come,” Prather said.
9 Investigates looked at how Visit Orlando’s compensation stacks with destination marketing organizations across the country Las Vegas, New York City, Miami, Los Angeles.
We found a few of those cities, like LA and New York City, paid their CEO’s slightly more than Visit Orlando.
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