A Day Late and A Dollar Short?
02/08/2005
Paul Munnis
There is no way that a new metro casino can be built and put online with Indian tribal participation in time for it to produce meaningful revenue for the biennium (2 year) budget.
It takes time to design and build a facility. More time to hire and train workers. More time to set up the processes and procedures needed for operations. Then there is the Indian gaming commission to deal with.
At the end of three years one might be able to open the door to a new metro casino. Maybe, with a huge push, it could be done at the end of two years.
Where is the money going to come from for all of the start up costs? Does the State have a hidden slush fund? Are we going to borrow some more? More questions than answers on this front.
Yet the Governor’s biennium budget proposal calls for $200 million in revenue over two years from the sources.
There is only one way we can see to fire up gaming increases pretty quick. It’s to approve Racino and to get an Indian tribe in on the action. The facility exists, the slots can be ordered, the computer systems can be installed, and the tribe can make application to the Indian Gaming Commission for a license to operate. Maybe a year and a half to do this is possible.
One thing though, the new Indian tribal operators won’t have the skills to operate a casino and so they will likely need to hire a managing group from out of town. This is done in Mille Lacs where the Grand Casino operates the facility for the tribe. We guess that Pawlenty would thus hold out his hands to a Las Vegas operator, maybe the same ones that want in at the Mall of America. We guess they would pay for all of the start up costs. And we guess they would want iron clad guarantees for long term contracts.
Pawlenty is entering onto slippery slopes with this Minnesota State involvement in gaming and with budgetary reliance on gambling revenue to operate our state.
We oppose it and wish a better future on Minnesota than what Pawlenty is offering to us.
There are plenty of other ways to raise revenue for our State and not all of them require tax increases.