Jan 20, 2017 4 min read

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court late Friday afternoon put on hold for four months an amendment to a law requiring casinos to pay tens of millions of dollars to their host communities for a decade.

The state’s highest court ruled in September that the roughly 4 percent local share assessment is unconstitutional because it is not uniform and affects a dozen casinos differently. The justices last fall said they would delay the effect of their decision for four months to give lawmakers an opportunity to fix it. That deadline was about to expire.

This month, state Sens. Joseph Scarnati, Jake Corman and Jay Costa petitioned the Supreme Court in Harrisburg regarding the amendment to Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act.

The new deadline is May 26.

State Rep. Brandon Neuman, a North Strabane Township resident whose district includes The Meadows Racetrack & Casino in his home community, learned of the court’s order, which includes a dissent by Justice David Wecht.

Under the state’s original 2004 law which legalized casino gambling, casinos must pay at least 4 percent of gross slot-machine revenues to their host communities. That includes 2 percent to counties and 2 percent or $10 million, whichever is greater. As The Meadows’ host community, North Strabane Township receives about $2.7 million annually, $2 million of which comes from slots revenue.

The rest is divvied up to projects throughout the county. The committee that reviews requests for the Local Share Account makes recommendations to the county commissioners, who forward a list of proposed projects to the state Department of Community and Economic Development. Just last month, the committee recommended $6.7 million worth of community improvement projects, ranging from a ramp to make the Beth-Center Senior Citizen Center accessible to the disabled to $500,000 for a sewer project at the Washington County Airport in South Franklin Township.

“The current law will be in place until the date in May,” Neuman said of the extension. “This is not a victory, but the Supreme Court has given us more time to wrestle with this in the legislature.”

Neuman said his objective is make sure “our local municipalities are not harmed in any way and that the local share does not go away and stays the same as it has been.”

Both the State House and Senate convene on Monday, when Neuman expects committee reorganization to take place.

Changes to the gaming law is “not on the agenda to happen next week,” he said.

Counties and communities that do not have a casino hope to wrest revenue from those that do.

Washington County Commissioner Harlan Shober, who became president of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania earlier this month, said Thursday before the Supreme Court ruled that he had informally discussed potential changes in the gaming law with commissioners from other parts of the state.

“I don’t begrudge anyone what they have,” Shober said and if counties want a share of casinos, his reply to them is, “Open up your own casino. They’re wanting to take a share of our money that is going to our communities helping to develop jobs and build infrastructure. Everybody is looking for dollars.”

In addition to communities and non-governmental organizations applying for local share funding, the basic formula for all but the tiniest communities in Washington County is $25,000 plus $10 per person counted in the U.S. Census, Shober said.

Among the petitioners, Scarnati, from Brockway, Jefferson County, is President Pro Tempore of the State Senate; Corman, from Bellefonte, Centre County, is majority leader. Both are Republicans. Costa, a Democrat from Forest Hills, Allegheny County, is minority leader.

In the two-sentence order Friday, the court granted their request for extraordinary relief, exercising what is known as “King’s Bench power.” Although the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts website traces King’s Bench back to English common law, the power is included in the Pennsylvania Constitution, stating, however, that “the Supreme Court exercises these powers only on rare occasions.”

Ironically, a King’s Bench case in 1983 also involved North Strabane when the state’s highest court ousted the township’s board of supervisors.