Nearly a month ago it looked as though the Rivers Casino was going to conduct a legal battle to stop paying the municipal host fee set out in law to the City of Pittsburgh. That lawsuit was dropped at the end of July.
Under a separate law, that host fee is intercepted by the oversight board and then directed toward specific City financial uses. That has been a major point of contention between Pittsburgh and the oversight board, but according to published news reports and a press release from the Mayor’s office it appears the board will vote to release the money this coming week and it will be directed toward the pension fund.
The legislation signed into law as Act 99 of 2016 makes changes to the treatment of the host fee money going forward. The law specifies that once the oversight board is terminated then the host fee money is to go directly to pensions.
