Delaware lawmakers say a package of tax and fee cuts for the state’s three struggling racinos is at the bottom of the priority list as debate begins on next year’s budget.
State Senator Brian Bushweller sponsored a bill including a package of $20 million in tax and fee cuts for the racinos, generally mimicking the recommendations of the state Lottery and Gaming Study Commission, a panel of state officials and lawmakers. That commission’s report recommended that the state cover nearly $10 million in vendor fees paid by casinos, starting next fiscal year; and that table-game revenue taxes and license fees be reduced.
However, as a joint legislative committee began hammering out the budget last week, the chances appeared dim that the savings would be realized by the beleaguered casinos, which have been slammed by competition from Maryland and Pennsylvania.
“What casinos?” said Senator Harris McDowell, co-chair of the General Assembly’s budget committee, when asked about the casino bailout, according to the Delaware News Journal. “I’m not taking any position on that. What I need is to add another $30 million of things that I have to cut in the next two years.”
Bushweller has said that the state should support the casinos as a stakeholder in the industry’s revenues, and executives of the state’s three casinos—at Delaware Park, Dover Downs and Harrington Raceway—have said layoffs and other cutbacks are likely without a break in the state’s tax and fee load, which was actually increased in 2009 as the recession took hold.
However, lawmakers have made it clear that a pay increase for state employees and other issues take precedence to helping the casinos, and with overall revenues projected to drop, a bailout for the casinos appears unlikely.
“We need to do what’s in the best interest of the state, and at this point everyone can see that there’s just not the money there,” said Rep. Melanie George Smith, a member of the committee.
