Last fall we wrote a report that classified all of the separate streams of gaming money coming into and floating around Allegheny County. This month, the state’s Legislative Budget and Finance Committee released a report analyzing the gaming money that is circulating around Philadelphia.
A couple of interesting things to note: since the wage tax burden in Philadelphia is very high and has been tagged as one of the principal killers of job growth in the City, the law directed gaming money from the property tax relief fund to go towards wage tax reductions as opposed to homestead property tax relief as is the case in all other school districts in the state. Wage tax rates—which fall on residents and non-residents who work in Philadelphia—were at their highest in the early 1980s (4.96% and 4.3125%, respectively) but have fallen and are now at 3.928% and 3.499% with reductions projected over the next five years.
The City hosts one casino, and it gets a local share assessment (host fee) the way the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County do from the Rivers Casino. Since Philadelphia is a combined city-county, the local share is distributed between the school district (it gets the first $5 million) and the City (the remainder generated from the 4% assessment).
Lastly, like the gaming money directed to convention center uses here, the Pennsylvania Convention Center expansion receives an annual allotment from the economic development fund, up to a maximum of $880 million. To date, a total of $250 million has been dedicated toward the center.
