From the Herald Palladium:
About $6.2 million in electronic gambling profits and interest from the Four Winds Casino is to be released within a few weeks to a board that will distribute it to local governments and school districts.
The Pokagon-Harbor Country Local Revenue Sharing Board voted unanimously Monday to have the money transferred to accounts the board is opening at Horizon Bank.
The board is aiming to begin distribution within 60 days, said member Jeanne Dudeck, the Chikaming Township supervisor.
The release of the money will end a delay of more than a year by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, which owns the casino in New Buffalo Township. The tribe is holding the money in an interest-earning escrow account.
Matt Wesaw, the tribe’s representative on the five-member LRSB, said the Tribal Gaming Authority must approve the fund transfer, but no delay is expected.
Before approving the transfer, the board voted to approve an investment policy.
Under a state compact that regulates gambling at the casino, the tribe is to pay 2 percent of the net winnings from electronic gambling to the LRSB.
The casino opened in August 2007, and the first payment was due in December 2007. Because of what it characterized as concerns about the LRSB bylaws and funding distribution, the Pokagon Band withheld the money and subsequent payments in escrow. The tribe also withheld a required 6 percent payment to the state, but resolved the disputes in an amended compact approved in August. The amended compact expanded the LRSB from three members to five.
Permanent members are New Buffalo Township, New Buffalo, Berrien County and the Pokagon Band. The fifth seat is held on a rotating basis by a person representing one of eight local governments in the New Buffalo area. Chikaming Township currently holds the seat.
LRSB members reported that Dave Meister, a township supervisor in the Manistee area who owns an assessing business, may be the right person to conduct an assessment at Four Winds to use as the basis for the LRSB to distribute a portion of the money it receives.
As a sovereign nation, the Pokagon Band pays no property taxes. The compact with the state requires that a portion of the money paid to the LRSB be distributed to New Buffalo Township, Berrien County, the New Buffalo Library Board and three school districts.
The distribution, called payment in lieu of taxes, or PILT, is to make up for the property tax revenue not received by the taxing units.
Wesaw said Meister has a lot of experience assessing casinos and is “a person we can deal with.”
Meister “knows what’s going on in this whole state on this issue,” Dudeck said.
The Pokagon Band’s Tribal Council asserts that the gambling area of the casino should be assessed as a gaming facility, but not the hotel, restaurants and other property. Some local government officials want the gaming facility referred to in the compact to mean the entire complex.
The LRSB is also considering distributing the PILT money according to formulas that would use percentages and make a traditional assessment unnecessary.
According to the compact, the first priority for the money paid by the tribe to the LRSB is for actual costs to local governments that result from the development or operation of the casino, such as police and fire.
Next are the PILT payments, which are supposed to be an amount equivalent to the amount of property taxes the unit of government would have received if the gambling facility were subject to those taxes.
Any remaining money is to be disbursed to eligible local units for any lawful government purpose.
The LRSB will hold a special meeting at 1 p.m. April 24 at New Buffalo City Hall to review and possibly adopt bylaws. A committee has worked on the bylaws, and they are “pretty well complete,” Dudeck said.
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