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| Karen Collis |
Communities surrounding the casino get priority and some of them would really like some money. But they'll have to wait.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that the tax imposed on slots revenue is unconstitutional because it violates the uniformity clause. The Court has stayed its decision while a legislative fix is attempted in the land of midnight payraises. But until that happens, the funds collected are in legal limbo. Solicitor Graham Simmons has warned the board that "the money collected is an unconstitutional tax" and that "there could come a day when the state calls this money back."
At the October 23 meeting of the Gaming Board, Tom Nolan urged the board to at least start accepting grant applications. "We're just letting the money sit there," he complained. But the Board will continue to wait.
The nine-person Board includes Joe Kelly (Bethlehem), Tom Nolan (Bethlehem Tp), Gerald Yob (Freemansburg), Jay Finnigan (Hanover), Dave Heintzelman (Hellertown), Donna Louder (Lower Saucon), Tony Pristash (Northampton), John Dally (Pen Argyl) and James Pennington (Lower Nazareth). Karen Collis is the Executive Director.
3 comments:
Fix this bad gaming law that picks winners and loser based on municipal and County borders. Northampton County does a decent job of trying to spread the wealth because they have several stakeholders on the committee. However Lehigh County could benefit from improvments.
Keep the defined benefit for the Cities.
Instead of putting excess local share from record months back in the pockets of those that receive defined benefit, place this money in a pool for municiplaities that do not receive adefined benefit.
Table games is exclusive to municipalities that are contiguous to Bethlehem. In most years, the grant $ available for municipal grants is more than the slot share that is defined for all other municipalities within a County. Awards should meet the needs of contiguous munis however those dollars are imbalanced.
Require Counties to distributd more of their share of Slots. 20% of Slots is too low. They should be required to distribute 50%, 60% or more of the share.
Any expansion of Gaming should create a grant program that supports municipalities that do not receive a defined benefit.
This year Lehigh County received 6 requests and awarded 5 including 2 to the same municiplaity meanwhile they held onto $1.1M. To date, they have received $8,127,272 and only awarded $1,753,137 to municipalities. Menawhile, Monroe County share via CFA has distributed $8,962,655 to Northampton County municiplaiites.
Over $132 MILLION in local share has been distributed in the LV. Communities 35 miles from Mt Airy have benefited from Monroe County $. However, if your 5 miles from the Sands in Lehigh County and not contiguous to Bethelehem, need not apply. Eight years is enough waiting for me and my municipality.
@8:18,
Changing the law to distribute the funds the way it is done for Mt. Airy will result in municipalities in counties adjacent to Northampton to apply for those funds. That means Monroe, Lehigh, Bucks and Carbon county municipalities will be able to apply for funding. It's better to keep the funds at home.
I have deleted someone who keeps asking creepy and irrelevant questions about Ms. Collis. File a right-to-know.
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