The Delaware House of Representatives approved a state Senate-passed measure to provide nearly million in emergency aid to casinos, covering the first year of a million bailout package recommended earlier this year by a state-sanctioned commission.
House members approved the bailout on a 27-10 vote only minutes before adjourning for the session at about 3:30 a.m. last Tuesday. The bill’s proponents had painted it as a job-saving measure and preservation of state revenues from casinos.
State Rep. Dennis Williams told the Associated Press that the measure was passed with the understanding that the casinos will not carry out the layoffs they had threatened if they did not receive the aid, which they said were inevitable because of their losses due to competition from neighboring states. “I hope the casinos show good faith and do not cut their work force,” said Williams, who had submitted and subsequently withdrawn an amendment that would have required the casinos to return the money if they reduced their work force by 3 percent or more.
House lawmakers had already given final approval last week to a $3.8 billion operating budget for the fiscal year that started Tuesday, a budget that does not include the casino bailout money. The sources of funding were patched together from other programs by state senators after it became obvious that there was no money in the budget for aid that was suggested by a panel of state officials and lawmakers who had studied ways to help the casinos, which have struggled since Maryland Live! and other casinos opened in the state. The racinos—Dover Downs, Delaware Park and Harrington Raceway—had relied on Maryland gamblers for much of their revenue.
Funding for the bill includes $5 million left over from last year’s bailout money provided to the three casinos; $3.2 million from the funding meant to build the Kent County Sports Complex, and the remainder from the Delaware Economic Development Office’s job infrastructure fund.
That fund provides for highway, utility and other infrastructure projects, but also may be used to assist existing businesses create jobs.
The remainder of the $20 million in suggested aid—in the form of reductions in table-game taxes and various fees, as well as the takeover of equipment purchases by the state—will be addressed in next year’s session, according to lawmakers.
