On Tuesday, Live Casino Pittsburgh in Hempfield had some impressive payouts.
It wasn’t because someone bet on black or stayed at the slot machine until a jackpot came up. The awards weren’t paid in poker chips.
The prize was $19 million in casino-generated funds distributed to organizations with a public interest. The money comes from the Local Share Account via the Commonwealth Financing Authority. The Local Share Account was created by state law as part of the program to give back to the people from the money spent in gambling venues.
The $19 million was just one county and just one year. It is only a slice of the whole. The funds go to support “projects of public interest,” with some going to government entities and some to other nonprofits.
The public is definitely served by money funneled into the North Huntingdon Township Municipal Authority, the Sardis Volunteer Fire Department and the Franklin Township Municipal Authority. The people benefit by a new bridge in Murrysville, a camera system to assess stormwater drains in Hempfield and technology for the Westmoreland County District Attorney’s Office.
But just because it is good doesn’t mean it is what Pennsylvania was promised.
When legalized gambling was sold to the public more than 20 years ago, it was with a specific idea. Let the casinos be built, people were told, and it will be the magic bullet to fix the problem of property taxes.
It isn’t that the magic bullet didn’t hit the target. It feels as though it was never fired.
In Pennsylvania, the average property tax is about a half-percent higher than the national rate. California, New Jersey, New York and Virginia all pay more dollar for dollar, but all of those states have higher property values than Pennsylvania. California’s effective tax rate — the percentage of your annual income you pay in tax — is 0.68%. Pennsylvania’s is 1.26%.
To be fair, that does include the state’s sky-high gas tax, sales tax and other taxes, but that’s also true of California, which has the only gas tax higher than Pennsylvania.
Keystone State homeowners have been told for decades that property tax help was coming. They have had solutions put on the table — like gambling. And the money generated by gambling has helped many organizations that benefit the public. And, yes, there has been some help given to school district tax relief. Those tax bills are the largest for most property owners.
But Pennsylvania homeowners are struggling. And the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board reported gaming revenue from slots, table games, online gaming, sports betting and more rose by more than $370 million last year, hitting $5.8 billion.
The industry is doing a lot for the state in terms of job creation and generating money in other businesses, fueling the economy. But some people are winning big off legalized gambling. The taxpayers bet it would be them. Is it?