Cities want casino funds
Greene County commissioner says request is premature.
City and township officials in Greene County are asking the Greene County Board of Commissioners to consider distributing to them the casino revenue that the county will be receiving to replace their losses from the local government fund.
However, county commissioners said it’s premature to address the issue now because that money specifically is allocated to the county and it remains unclear how much the county will receive when the money begins being distributed later this year.
“At this point, I don’t have my checkbook out because there’s nothing in my checkbook,” county commissioner Alan Anderson said. “As things develop, I owe it to the cities the courtesy and respect and duty to seriously consider it, and I will. Their request is perfectly legitimate, but I’ve got to know other stuff.”
Fairborn City Manager Deborah McDonnell said in a presentation to City Council last month that Greene County is projected to collect more than $4.5 million in gross casino revenue once all four casinos around the state are up and running next year.
Casinos in Cleveland and Toledo opened last month, Columbus is expected to open later this year and Cincinnati next year.
Casino revenue payments are expected to be distributed in August and October or November of this year, according to Kent Scarrett, spokesman for the Ohio Municipal League.
“I don’t think the counties will share that revenue,” said Scarrett, who noted that municipalities all around the state are bringing up this issue. “They’re constrained just as everybody else is. Our folks are hurting, if not more than the counties. Municipalities get more from the local government fund than counties or townships, and when they were cut in half, we were more disproportionately affected. I don’t think the counties will do it on their own. They want to protect their revenue stream, and for good reason. It’d be great if there was a spirit of cooperation, but there are a lot of forces there that would be resistant.”
City councils in Fairborn, Beavercreek and Xenia recently passed resolutions requesting the county commissioners to distribute casino revenues in the same manner and proportion as the local government fund. Greene County Township Association President Bob Glaser — also a Beavercreek Twp. trustee — sent a letter to the county with a similar request.
“All organizations — state, county and local — are looking for revenue,” said Glaser, who will join the county’s Board of Commissioners in January. “The whole area has undergone hard economic times the last few years.”
“We depend on the local government fund quite heavily and we budget for those funds,” Glaser said. “As a result of that being cut back, we have to find other sources of revenue. Since this has become a new source of revenue, everybody looks at it very closely to see if they can get a piece of the pie.”
The constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2009 says that 33 percent of the total revenue goes back to government entities (counties, schools, host cities, state commissions), with 51 percent of that figure distributed to all 88 counties based on that county’s population. If a county’s most populated city is greater than 80,000, then 50 percent of that county’s distribution goes to that city.
According to an economic impact study by the Ohio Department of Taxation in 2009, nearly $2 billion in total revenue is expected to be generated annually by the four casinos, and one-third of that is roughly $643.5 million in gross casino revenue.
“When the local government funds were cut, everybody got cut,” said Xenia City Manager Jim Percival, whose city’s local government fund has been reduced by about $500,000. “When the casino revenues are distributed, they left local governments out. Because this is a restoration of funds, everybody should be restored, and it can be based on that same (local government fund) formula. It makes sense.”
If the same formula was applied to the gross casino revenue, Fairborn would receive the largest portion at $730,245, followed by Xenia ($669,353) and Beavercreek ($424,878).
But Anderson said using the local government formula to distribute the casino revenue is not “apples to apples” because the county has services it has to provide for citizens while at the same time it also has had to deal with a reduction of revenue streams.
“Imagine if we went back to the state and said we need more money for services,” Anderson said. “They’re going to say, ‘We gave you a lot of gambling money, but you gave it away to cities. That’s not our problem.’ There’s nothing simple about it.”
Glaser said this all could end up being a “moot argument” because amendments could be made to the constitution to include cities and townships in the casino revenue distribution formula.
Scarrett said that most likely won’t be looked at until early next year — at the soonest — when the state budget is put together and state officials have a better idea of how much revenue the casinos actually are generating.
“The county commissioners are a very powerful force around the statehouse,” Scarrett said. “I think (the counties’ consideration) is definitely a given. But we’ve been beat up so bad I don’t think anybody will come to our rescue. Our folks are facing difficult financial situations.”