HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The chairman of the Mohegan Tribe is advocating for the town that hosts Mohegan Sun to receive a bigger share of the revenue it hands over to Connecticut, joining a cause that has been dear to Montville since the casino opened in 1996.
Chairman Kevin Brown, who was elected last year as the tribe’s leader, believes it’s important that Montville be recognized as a host community, tribal spokesman Chuck Bunnell said Monday.
Connecticut’s two tribal-owned casinos, Mohegan Sun and the Foxwoods Resort Casino, give the state 25 percent of their slot revenue, a contribution that has fallen from $430 million in 2007 to $296 million last year. The state gives some of that money to cities and towns, using a formula that weighs factors including the value of state-owned property, population and per-capita income to calculate grants for its 169 municipalities.
Montville’s share has fallen from $2.9 million in 2008 to $1.5 million last year, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget proposal reduces it to $1.1 million for 2015.
As developers pursue more casino projects across the Northeast, Montville Mayor Ronald McDaniel said he often hears from officials in other states, and he urges them to negotiate aggressively to secure aid up front. He said officials dealing with private developers would likely have more leverage than his town did with the federally recognized tribe, which owns sovereign land inside the town’s boundaries.
He said he understands that the grants are affected by the casinos’ financial slump, but the town is seeking more information from state budget officials on their calculations.
“We’re the ones that need to buy more police cars and have more EMTs on the road,” McDaniel said. He said the town’s schools are also affected by the need to accommodate the children of casino workers, including some whose first language is not English.
The state has accounted for burdens on host communities by including an additional $750,000 in the grants for five towns near casinos, including Montville.
“Towns can always use more help and hope that as Connecticut continues to improve we can do more in the future,” said Gian-Carl Casa, a spokesman for the state Office of Policy and Management.
Brown, a Montville native who retired from the Army as a colonel in 2011, raised his support for Montville receiving a bigger slice of the pie at a town meeting Thursday. His remarks were reported first by The Day of New London. Brown is willing to advocate for the region around the casino, but he is committed to work with Montville officials in particular, Bunnell said.
Bunnell said Brown already has raised the issue in discussions with state officials.
At the peak of the casinos’ success, the Mashantucket Pequot/Mohegan Fund Grant paid out a total of $93 million to Connecticut cities and towns in 2008. In the last fiscal year, it paid out $61.8 million.
The largest grants last year went to Connecticut’s biggest cities, with $7.4 million for New Haven, $6.7 million for Hartford and $6.2 million for Bridgeport.
Ledyard, which hosts the Mashantucket Pequots and their Foxwoods casino, received $940,000.
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