The Day – Gaming-revenue invoice could be boon for municipalities, tourism, neighborhood school college students

A new version of a gaming revenue law would increase grants to cities and towns through a revision of the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund and payments instead of taxes on tribal lands. Fuel nationwide tourism marketing and an arts, culture and tourism fund; set up a debt-free community college account; and extend alcohol sales in casinos.

The passage of the law depends on the legislature also approving a separate law based on the gambling agreements. Governor Ned Lamont’s government has negotiated with the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes, the owners of Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun, respectively.

Both bills emerged from the office of impartial legislative commissioners, whose lawyers are tasked with sharpening the language of the legislative proposals.

Senate Bill 146, the Revenue Bill, would end the current “distribution methods” for the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund and require an annual transfer of $ 139.4 million from the General Fund to the Fund from fiscal year 2024 onwards. how the money is distributed to the cities of the state.

The amount is approximately 2.7 times more than the $ 51.5 million distributed to local authorities in FY 2020, an amount that will remain unchanged in each of the FY 2021, 2022, and 2023 spending plans.

The fund came from the state’s 25% cut in tribal casino slot machine revenues. If approved, the tribe’s sports betting and online gambling operations – as set out in House Bill 6451 – would also be used as sources for the fund.

State Senator Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, who drafted the first version of a bill in 2020 to deal with the distribution of gaming revenue to local authorities, was motivated by the belief that the cities of eastern Connecticut were not getting their fair share got. She has tried to bring the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund back to its peak, which it had reached some 20 years ago. For fiscal years 1998 through 2002, the fund was split from $ 130 million to $ 135 million annually. In fiscal 2019, the fund fell to $ 49.9 million, its lowest level ever.

Senate Bill 146 would also increase the reimbursement rate for payments made by the state to Ledyard and Montville from 45% to 100% in lieu of taxes paid on land that the federal government trusts on the reservations of the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes would have classified removing the land from local tax roles.

The bill provides for $ 20 million in annual income from taxes on sports betting and online games to be deposited in the statewide tourism account, which typically funds non-governmental advertising campaigns, and an additional $ 10 million in the national tourism account starting in fiscal year 2024 Arts, Culture and Tourism Fund, currently known as the Tourism Fund.

In addition, the bill would create a separate account within the General Fund to support the Debt-Free Community College program, launched in 2019 to help certain Connecticut college graduates who are starting out as first-time, full-time regional community or technical Enroll college students. The account would be funded from revenue generated by Connecticut Lottery Corp. from selling tickets online for their lottery games.

Such online ticket sales are another provision of House Bill 6451, the gaming agreements bill.

As of fiscal 2022, the revenue statement would double from $ 2.3 million to $ 4.6 million. This is the annual amount that the lottery must transfer to an account for the prevention and treatment of gambling problems.

And the bill would allow casino permits to sell alcohol until 4 a.m. seven days a week. Currently, such sales are limited to 1am on weekdays and 2am on Fridays and Saturdays.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com