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Slight Increase In Slots Revenue Cannot Keep Up With Increased Tax Relief Participants

Posted on June 7th, 2010

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In Pennsylvania, tax revenues from slot machines go into the property tax relief program. In Alle-Kiski Valley, the school districts levy the taxes on personal property, which in Pennsylvania law apply only to land and building. The school districts also decide on the amount of tax relief that would be deducted from the tax bills of approved property owners. Deadline for application is March 1 every year. Tax revenues from slot machines have seen a small increase, however, that increase could not make the same progress as the rise in the number of property owners who applied for a tax break.

According to the Department of Education, for the whole state of Pennsylvania, $616.5 million in tax relief will be available for the 2010-11 school year, which is a little over the $613.2 million for 2009-2010. For school year 2008-09 when the Taxpayer Relief Act (Act 1 of 2006) was first implemented, $612.9 million was offered as tax relief. For Alle-Kiski Valley, $16.3 million in tax relief will be distributed to its 15 districts and will be given out to around 81,000 property owners. According to statistics from the Department of Education, the amount is just $8,000 higher than last year, but the number of property owners saw an increase of 1,300 from the past year.

Each district determines the amount to be distributed among qualified property owners through a formula that allots the highest amount of property tax relief to the poorest districts or those having more taxes to pay or those having both factors. The highest amount of $3.59 million will be set aside for the Armstrong School District, and the lowest, $355,000 will be assigned to Riverview. Property owners in Apollo-Ridge will get $319 each, the highest tax relief, and South Butler County property owners will each receive $114, the lowest amount in tax relief. The property owners in Alle-Kiski districts will receive slightly lesser amounts in tax relief this year, except for Burrell, which remained unchanged.

The Education Department reported a much higher increase in the number of farm and home owners applying for tax relief than the increase in savings from slot machine tax revenues collected from the nine casinos currently operating in the state. In Apollo-Ridge, the number of property owners that were approved to avail of the state’s tax relief program increased to 2,754 or 1.5 percent. School board president Greg Primm said Apollo-Ridge has not raised the property tax for the last two years. He said not many people in the district know about the tax break program, but he said as soon as everyone will find out, the savings from slot machine revenue will definitely be used up. He said he himself failed to benefit from last year’s relief.

Primm said although this is a temporary thing, people should make use of the opportunity to collect the money due them which they can use for their expenses. In 2004 when legislation was passed allowing slot machine gambling in the state, the state projected revenues to reach $1 billion by the time all gambling facilities are operational. Twelve full casinos and three resorts are expected to open with the legalization of table games that was approved last year in an attempt to balance the state’s budget. Revenue from table gaming, though, will not go into the property relief program, but into the state’s general fund.

Gary Tuma, Gov. Ed Rendell’s spokesman, said the state is on course to reach the projected revenue. He said it is understandable that there have not been big increases in gains from gambling because of the downturn wherein people are keeping a tight rein on their spending.