There’s a fascinating article in today’s Pittsburgh Post Gazette on state funding for state police to provide law enforcement and security services at Pennsylvania's six casinos and five horse racetracks. It's a topic that has been completely ignored by the Erie Times-News and other local news media, though they have buried the community in an avalanche of gushing promotional trivia relating to Presque Isle Downs and Casino.
According to the article by the Post Gazette’s Harrisburg bureau reporter Tom Barnes, Governor Ed Rendell has cut the proposed budget for state police coverage of the casinos for the current fiscal year ending June 30 by $3 million from $14.5 to $11.5.
That would reduce state police presence at the casinos from 7 days/24 hours per week to 7 days/16 hours, eliminating the midnight to 8 a.m. shift. The coverage would be stretched even thinner when a seventh casino opens near Harrisburg next year.
The funding comes from the 55 percent of gross profits derived from slots which the casinos by law turn over to the state. It also pays for the game-related costs enuring to the state attorney general’s office, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board and the state Revenue Dept.
The balance of the state’s slots cut goes to property tax reduction, economic development, payments to the host counties and municipalities, and for horse breeding and training. That means that anything more than the governor’s proposed $11.5 budget for state police casino coverage would come directly from those programs.
Although a critic of gambling, the Republican state representative from Bucks County, Paul Clymer, was quoted by Barnes as saying: "I'm sympathetic to the needs of the state police. This [gambling] industry is subject to corruption and crime, and we're playing tiddlywinks making sure they have the proper police complement. The casinos complain their financial burden is too heavy, but they're also in the paper bragging about how much money they are making.'' Clymer supports restoring the $3 million cut by the governor because he believes state police should maintain an around-the-clock presence at the casinos.
According to Barnes, the state troopers make sure underage patrons aren't allowed in the slots areas and aren't served alcohol. Working with private security officers, they break up any fights or disturbances. State police also do background checks and fingerprint checks on applicants who seek to work at a casino.
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1 comment:
That is an interesting article. I kind of agree with Clymer. The state is getting a lot of money from the casinos, and I don't see it as a misappropriation of funds to spend a few million dollars to protect our investment, so to speak.
I mean if we let these guys police themselves, there's no telling what sort of trouble it could lead to. Spending $15 million to protect an annual revenue stream of I don't know, but based on our Erie County revenue, I'm assuming it's several hundred million dollars, doesn't seem like a bad deal at all.
Ralph
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