The city of Lawrenceburg, home of the Argosy Casino, has agreed to provide $10 million of its gambling proceeds toward the $100 million in infrastructure improvements that will be made to benefit the plant and future economic growth in the region.
It's a move that Gov. Mitch Daniels' hopes will quiet criticism that casino communities -- and Lawrenceburg in particular -- are reaping too much benefit from their gambling boats.
"That's exactly the sort of investment that those revenues ought to go for and probably the legislature originally anticipated," Daniels said. "It really should end the debate about those dollars being stripped away from Lawrenceburg or other river communities."
Last year, some Republicans in the House and Senate drew up plans to redistribute some of the money that local communities receive from the casino.
Much the cash communities enjoy results from local development agreements -- contracts between the casino and the community that spell out how much the boats will give to local foundations, programs and governments.
But lots of it also comes from admissions and wagering tax revenues of which a portion also are distributed to local governments.
Lawrenceburg, which has the biggest revenue casino and by far the most lucrative development agreement, has not in the past shared its money. That caused big problems at the General Assembly, where lawmakers from districts with no casino and no source of ready cash were prepared to nab some for either the state budget or their own communities.
The Senate passed a plan last year that would have raised $75 million for the state budget by reducing the amount of money that riverboat communities could collect in casino taxes.
Ohio County and Rising Sun would have lost nearly $5.9 million annually -- about 80 percent of its tax collections.
The plan eventually failed, but talk about taking the money in the future hasn't completely subsided.
Early this year, Lawrenceburg Mayor Bill Cunningham developed a plan for sharing about $10 million of the city's wealth annually for area economic development projects. The original idea was that surrounding counties could request cash for projects.
So when the Honda deal came up, Daniels came calling. Cunningham said last week he was happy to oblige.
"We wanted to do what was needed," he said.
But will such generosity truly put to rest any legislative raid of communities' casino cash? Maybe not.
House Speaker Brian Bosma commended Lawrenceburg officials last week for their contribution to the project and said it was appropriate. But he wasn't willing to say the issue is over.
"I know there are legislators from around the state who would like to see a different distribution of those funds," he said, "but we'll have to have a thorough discussion about it before anything is changed."
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