Centre Wellington Township is no closer to a resolution in a dispute with the province and OLG than it was this summer over slots revenue.
Centre Wellington Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj said in an interview on Monday night there has been no movement to date on the OLG’s moving to international accounting standards.
That move will cost the OLG and the provincial government nothing, but it will claw back a share of the profits currently being paid to host municipalities and horse groups around the province.
In Centre Wellington, the cost will be about $69,000, starting next year.
The Grand River Agricultural Society and the horse groups in the province will also see their share of slots cash diminished, as the Ontario government keeps more slots and casino profits.
Across the province, the loss to municipalities and horse groups is $10 to $11 million.
“We’re trying to work with the OLG dealing with the clawbacks,” Ross-Zuj said during a break between public meetings at council.
The OlG announced late last week the township would receive $593,676 in the latest quarter as its share of the slots profits. Of that, about 20% goes to Wellington County.
To date, Centre Wellington has received more than $15.1 million, with the county receiving its share of that total.
Ross-Zuj said the municipalities have been cautious about opening up their agreements with the OLG for hosting the slots.
They see the international accounting standards as simply a cash grab by the province, but re-opening the full agreement could become even more costly because that would enable the province, which is buried deep in debt, to demand an even larger share.
“It’s not in our best interests to do that, said Ross-Zuj, summing up the situation diplomatically, adding it would be “a dangerous thing to do.”
She added each host municipality is very different from the next, so any agreement would be difficult to complete.
“While we’re trying to resolve it, it’s not on the table at this time,” she said.
The township determined shortly after the slots facility opened in Elora the money from them would be used for infrastructure projects, and it has leveraged much of that money, with the federal and provincial governments paying one third each of numerous infrastructure projects.
Payments are made on a quarterly basis according to the government fiscal year, which runs April to March.
OLG Slots at Grand River Raceway opened in late 2003. Since opening, the facility has attracted more than 4.7 million visitors.
In total, OLG issued more than $19 million in second-quarter non-tax gaming revenue payments to 23 municipalities that host OLG Casinos and OLG slots-at-racetrack facilities.
To date, OLG has distributed over $797 million to these host municipalities.
Each municipality hosting an OLG Slots-at-racetrack facility receives five per cent of the gaming facility’s gross slot machine revenue from the first 450 slot machines and two per cent from any additional machines over that number.
Tracks and their horse people also share the revenue generated by the slots program, with 20 per cent of gross slot machine revenue split evenly between the two groups.
Since the launch of the program in 1998, more than $3.59 billion has been shared between racetrack owners and their horse people.
In 2011-12, the province will allocate $120 million in gaming revenue to support charities through the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
