Dubois County could lose some of the funding it receives from casino taxes collected from French Lick Casino and other riverboat casinos if a Senate gaming bill passes the Indiana General Assembly.
Senate Bill 528 would make multiple changes in gaming. The bill would allow table games at racinos, which are horse racing tracks that have electronic games, let gambling boats move onto adjacent land and protect the West Baden Preservation Fund.
Two aspects of the bill affect revenue coming to Dubois County. One would change the way casinos are taxed, which would affect the revenue generated by the French Lick operation and distributed to surrounding counties. The wagering tax revenue that is shared by counties that don’t have a riverboat also would change.
In 2012, Dubois County received $797,091 from those casino and wagering taxes. The changes included in SB428 would decrease that funding. Because of that, State Sen. Richard Young, D-Milltown, voted against the bill.
“This has a major impact on all of our counties, not just the ones that have gaming,” he said. “This bill proposes to reduce the funds counties receive.”
The bill proposes replacing the $3-per-person admissions tax with a 3.45 percent supplemental wagering tax. The change is designed help casinos like the one in French Lick be more competitive with gaming facilities outside the state, according to the fiscal analysis of the bill.
“They’re trying to make adjustments to make the casinos and racinos in the state more viable,” Young said. “But that guarantees that there will be less money for the counties that receive revenue from the tax.”
Dubois County received $548,944 from the admissions tax revenue in 2012. All of it was used for property tax relief.
Currently, counties that don’t have a riverboat split $33 million of wagering taxes collected from riverboats. SB528 would replace that flat amount with a percentage of the taxes collected. The amount collected from the percentage could be more than the $33 million. But more than likely, Young said, that total would be less.
“Based on projections, this bill will cut that funding by 25 to 30 percent,” he said. “That’s going to be difficult on counties because they’re all strapped for money already.”
In 2012, $248,147 of that $33 million came to Dubois County and was shared with its municipalities. Give or take a few cents, Jasper received $89,084; Huntingburg, $35,881; Ferdinand, $12,778; Holland, $3,708; and Birdseye, $2,464. The county’s portion was $104,231, which went to property tax relief.
Young said that allowing the racinos to have table games would put them in direct competition with casinos like French Lick. “It will take business from Orange County,” he said. “There’s a provision in the bill to help the casino owners, but not help Orange County and those municipalities that get funding from the casino taxes.”
State Sen. Lindel Hume, D-Princeton, opposed the bill. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he voted against the bill because it proposes to allow the owners of West Baden Springs Hotel to take from the preservation fund up to $2 million per year for maintenance. The fund, generated from casino tax revenue, was established to restore and ensure the future maintenance of the hotel should the casino’s economic climate deteriorate. The owners of West Baden Springs Hotel already are using the interest generated by the $20 million fund, Hume said.
“If we let them take out $2 million each year, the fund could easily be depleted in 10 years,” he said.
After the bill passed the appropriations committee, bill author Sen. Phil Boots, R-Crawfordsville, attached an amendment that would preserve the fund. The amendment protects the $20 million and mandates that the interest accrued from the money also go into the fund. Also, the owners could use up to $500,000 of the fund annually, instead of the $2 million that was originally requested.
Because of those changes, Hume voted for the bill.
“There are a lot of things in that bill that I didn’t like,” he said. “But my first interest is protecting that preservation fund for the future of the West Baden Springs Hotel.
Hume said he’d rather the bill pass in its current form, where the fund is protected, than to possibly come to a conference committee for negotiations.
“If I really had my preference and knew there was no way for this legislation to come back, I’d rather for the bill to have died,” he said. “But I’ve been around long enough that I know that it wouldn’t just die and not come back. It would come back in a form that I wouldn’t like. It would have come back again in another form and those involved would say the heck with my concerns.”
The Senate passed SB528 Feb. 25 by a vote of 33 to 18. The bill is now being reviewed in the House Public Policy Committee, of which State Rep. Mark Messmer, R-Jasper, is a member.
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