I would like to thank the 106,000 of my fellow Broward County residents who voted yes on the sucker’s bet to approve slot machines in the county’s existing horse and dog tracks and jai lai fronton. Perhaps I should be more concerned about the 874,000 registered voters who chose to stay home on March 8th and let our county again become the laughingstock of our state.
Why am I frustrated and embarrassed? It is because my fellow county residents failed to make a reasoned voting decision beyond “those Indian casinos and cruises-to-nowhere pay no taxes so we might as well get something”. It is because many of my neighbors felt that approving additional gambling options in our area was more important than the realization that our new racinos will be generating tens of millions of dollars of educational funding for other counties in our state with only a tiny share for our own children! And in exchange for this tiny sliver of revenue, our county and our local municipalities will have to incur the added expenses of the likely public safety requests which will be generated by these facilities. I also believe that our local restaurants and retailers will find that more of our area’s discretionary income will be deposited into those slot machines instead of into their cash registers.
If you don’t think the residents of every other county, including Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, are smiling at the prospects of increased educational funding in their jurisdictions at our expense, then you probably believed that our punch card machines in the year 2000 were the sole problem and not equally the failure of voters to take a few moments to ensure that their chads were cleanly punched. Our fellow county residents let the emotion of the “kids and jobs” issue blind them to the economic reality that there are much more bountiful and efficient ways to raise funds for our schools. In fact, the Broward County School Board is already planning to seek a 1 cent increase in the sales tax to generate far more money than even the most wildly optimistic racino tax projections. Of course my thoughts about allowing such a tax increase will be saved for a later column.
Despite warnings from key Broward County School Board members, leaders of the local Parent Teacher Associations, notable elected officials including our own Town of Davie Mayor, and many religious leaders, your fellow county voters believed that these new facilities will be the panacea for ending portable classrooms and properly valuing underpaid teachers. Let’s see how many classrooms will be built with the funds which the legislature in Tallahassee will allow to come back to Broward County. Don’t get your hopes up. Our Broward County legislative delegation is already marginalized in both the Florida House and Senate which are run by large majorities from the other political party. Our elected legislators will have little say how the money is distributed throughout the state and back to our county.
Please understand that my frustration is not against the concept of gambling or of slot machines although I personally do not have the urge to throw my hard earned money into one-arm bandits. In fact, my brother was an executive in the gaming industry for many years and almost has me convinced that gambling, if properly managed, is another form of entertainment. I would still rather use those dollars for an enjoyable meal, a good movie, or a probable lousy round of golf. Maybe I shouldn’t be so frustrated since I surmise it will now be easier for me to get a good table at my favorite restaurant or a start time for my round of golf since most of my fellow citizens will be keeping those slot machines busy every moment of the day if the racino lobbyists are still to be believed.
So what happens now? How much should the racinos be taxed to help educate our kids? The industry has stated that 30% would be a reasonable amount. Recent articles in the print media have pointed out that such a tax rate would be the lowest in the country for similar facilities. My suggestion is that the politicians in Tallahassee calculate what the tax rate needs to be to guarantee that the racinos contribute that $ 500 million dollars in educational dollars they promised our kids across the state. Maybe they should even be required to contribute the first $ 500 million in profits to the state before they can pocket any profits for themselves. Of course with only Broward County now being approved for those facilities, the annual education contribution will most likely be less so perhaps the tax rate should be set to generate half as much revenue with at least $ 250 million per year guaranteed for the kids.
