By Brandi Watters, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
brandi.watters@heraldbulletin.com
ANDERSON - Hoosier Park officials got a chance to make a plea for lower taxes and fees before a newly formed Gaming Study Committee on Monday.
It was the first meeting of the gaming committee, which formed recently in reaction to happenings at the latest session of the General Assembly, according to Sen. Luke Kenley, co-chairman of the committee.
Legislators were working for the casinos in their own district, and oftentimes, a request by one casino might negatively affect another in a different district, Kenley said.
"The focus of this commission is to review the overall structure of racinos and casinos and see if things need to be done to treat the industry more fairly," Kenley said.
During the first meeting of the 11-member committee in Indianapolis, Jim Brown of Hoosier Park and two other representatives from the Anderson racino got a chance to give a presentation to legislators.
The focus of their presentation was parity, Brown said.
"Parity is a concept which equalizes the mandatory payments as a percent of Adjusted Gross Gaming Revenue, AGR, for Indiana's racinos and riverboat casinos," the Hoosier Park Powerpoint presentation noted.
Hoosier Park objects to the disparity between taxes and fees paid by racinos versus riverboats, Brown explained.
Both of Indiana's racinos, Hoosier Park and Indiana Live, paid $250 million licensing fees to the state. The combined $500 million was used to give property tax relief to Hoosiers.
The riverboats, Brown said, paid nothing.
"There's really no way to compare the two situations," Kenley said. Riverboats, he said, were an experiment that started in 1992. "At that time, it was a whole brand new exercise and enterprise that nobody knew anything about."
If the riverboats were getting started today, Kenley said, they would likely pay a licensing fee.
The licensing fee imposed upon racinos, Kenley said, was something that the racinos paid willingly. "Nobody put a gun to their head."
When the licensing fees were decided, Brown said, the state believed revenue at the racinos would be higher and based the fee on a model of certain revenue figures. "Now that we have actual revenue available, it's becoming clearer that the model does not work," Brown said.
The disparity extends beyond licensing fees, he said. "We pay 47 percent of any revenue to mandatory payments ... If we were a riverboat, we would pay 35 percent."
Brown is encouraged, however, by the formation of the committee and the opportunity to speak to legislators directly. "I am gratified that they took the time to listen to us."
Brown hopes the committee will review the current fees imposed upon racinos in hopes of putting them in line with the fees charged to riverboats.
The committee will meet twice more this year, Kenley said. The next meeting is in September, followed by one in October.
At the end of the year, he said, the committee will make a recommendation to the General Assembly and could possibly draft a bill regarding one of the Indiana gambling issues.
Kenley was unwilling to speculate about the nature of the bill. "It's too early to tell. We need to go through the meetings with all the casinos and all the interested parties, including those people that oppose gambling entirely."