After a multi-month process, today Dauphin County Gaming Advisory Board member Justin Warren of West Hanover Township and the Board's solicitor Mark Stewert of Eckert Seamans, presented the 2012-2013 Local Share Gaming Grant recommendations to Dauphin County Commissioners.

Every year since 2008, Dauphin County Commissioners have had the authority to award millions of dollars in shared casino revenue. Guided by State law, a percentage of this revenue are considered Local Share Gaming Grants and a Gaming Advisory Board is formed to recommend who and what should get the money.

The Board's list of recommendations is presented to Dauphin County Commissioners after a lenthy review process of application and interview. Ultimately, it is the Commissioners who vote to determine where the funds go. It's also within the Commissioners' authority to adjust the list of projects and funds recommended.

For this cycle, the Dauphin County Advisory Board received 100 applications for a total of $22.3 million in requests. In the end, 26 local governments and non-profits were awarded the $6.7 million available. The Advisory Board also included a $1.7 million of "Recommended Optional Funding." If majority rules, Dauphin County Commissioners can choose to allocate from a separate, discretionary pool of casino revenue known as Unrestricted Gaming Grants to fund these optional projects.

Notable recommended awardees included the City of Harrisburg--$409,000 for 10 new police patrol vehicles. Harrisburg Area Community College--$250,000 for the Public Safety Center expansion. Capital Area Greenbelt Association--$50,000 for Greenbelt expansion along with several municipalities for fire, sewer, and capital improvement projects.

What about property relief? That's the most common question there is when Pennsylvanians hear the phrase "gaming money." Per the Act, Local Share funds cannot be used for tax relief, and as Advisory Board member Justin Warren said in his presentation, "This gets confused out there to the general public."

Local Share funds are a separate reserve from the State collected and dispersed property tax relief fund. According to PA Secretary of Budget Charles Zogby in April, the State certified $782.5 million in gaming revenue was available for property tax relief in 2012.

As Warren explains, there is also the logic that Local Share grants keep local taxes down because the money is focused on funding public projects that might otherwise require municipal financing such as infrastructure and public safety.

In fact, the Advisory Board's current recommendations are divided 51% to Infrastructure & Facilities Improvement; 38% EMS, Health, & Public Safety; 10% Transportation; and 0.7% Public Interest Initiative. The presentation to the Commissioners included a projection that the $8 million dollars invested will yield a return of $59 million for Dauphin County including creating professional and construction jobs.

Of course, there is always a list of Not Recommended, and they are listed and presented to the Commissioners in priority of significance. Of the 35 projects on that list, the Whitaker Center, Susquehanna Art Museum, and Heros Grove are there. The last one on the list---the one utterly not recommended for funding---the City of Harrisburg's application for $170,000 for the Dock Street Dam hydroelectric generation study.

Based on the Dauphin County Commissioners' responses and the lack of questioning of the Advisory Board representatives at this morning's meeting, Commissioners Haste, Hartwick, and Pries are satisfied with the process up until this point.

"We will take a hard look at these, and we'll have these on for next week for a vote," said Chair Jeff Haste. The vote is scheduled for next Wednesday, February 13th at 10:00am.

Click the icon at the top of the page to watch the February 6th Gaming Advisory Board's presentation to Dauphin County Commissioners, and see the lists of recommendations.

by Tara Leo Auchey

Photo by Natalie Cake