The Tiverton, Rhode Island, town council is proposing an ordinance that would restrict revenue from the Twin River Tiverton Casino Hotel to prevent the town from budgeting money it doesn’t have.
The ordinance would recognize that casino revenue is not a given and that the revenues are not guaranteed.
Council President Patricia Hilton says that would prevent a “financial pickle” such as happened this year when the town depended on money that wasn’t forthcoming because the casino closed for several months due to the coronavirus shutdown.
In 2018 the town voted on a charter amendment to restrict casino revenue to capital, debt service and infrastructure but a slim majority of 13 votes didn’t support the amendment.
Now the council is going to roll the die and see if that majority switches its vote.
One council member observed, “The definition of insanity is doing things over and over again and expecting different results,” adding, “The reality is we’re looking at this from a different approach.”
Although the town thought that the state had promised to make good any revenue loss to the town from the casino, it found that the state didn’t mean if the casino had to shut down when ordered to by the state.
That promise was made in 2016 during the referendum when the town voted, again very narrowly, to host the casino. At that time it was promised $3.1 million a year, which it has been paid every year—until this year.
The town had already put that amount in the 2020 operating budget, along with another $100,000 for sports betting, when the pandemic struck. Then the state government told the town it was not responsible for the difference when the casino was not in operation. That left Tiverton with a nearly $2 million red spot on the budget.
Town Administrator Christopher Cotta commented, “The guarantee isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
The town administrator of the Lincoln, the other town in the state that hosts a casino, did warn the Tiverton council not to rely on casino money for its recurring budget items, not to become dependent on it. But they disregarded that advice.
Like many municipalities in the U.S., Tiverton is also being hurt by the pandemic by the loss of other revenues.
The next step is for the council to hold a hearing on the proposed ordinance.
The Tiverton casino did begin reopening June 8, but that doesn’t mean that the revenue lost from the months it was closed are likely to come back. And if the virus spikes again, it could reclose.
