\nElise Young, Bloomberg \u00b7 September 23, 2015 at 12:00 pm<\/p>\n
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\n\tBills to provide fresh financial backing for Atlantic City have spent weeks on Governor Chris Christie\u2019s desk as casinos say he\u2019s withholding crucial aid.<\/p>\n
\tNew Jersey\u2019s Local Finance Board on Tuesday approved a budget for the distressed city that includes $33.5 million from diverting a redevelopment tax and dissolving a marketing program. Those initiatives are part of a five-bill package that the Democratic-controlled legislature passed in June.<\/p>\n
\tChristie, a two-term Republican running for president, was reviewing the bills, said Kevin Roberts, a spokesman. The governor, who has called Atlantic City key to New Jersey\u2019s recovery, has struggled with a five-year plan to turn around the seaside resort as nearby states expanded gambling. Credit- ratings companies have complained about the lack of resolution in fixing the junk-rated city\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere\u2019s no reason for him not to sign it,\u201d said Senate President Steve Sweeney, a West Deptford Democrat who sponsored the measures.<\/p>\n
\tThe legislation waiting for Christie\u2019s decision would compel casinos to make payments in lieu of taxes; extract more school aid from the state; ensure health and retirement benefits for unionized casino workers; reallocate taxes to make bond payments; and redirect tourism funding for the city\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
\tThe bills are meant to stop a long slide. In 2006, at the height of Atlantic City\u2019s monopoly on East Coast gambling, annual revenue was $5.2 billion. It then fell for eight straight years, reaching $2.7 billion last year after New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland opened gambling houses.<\/p>\n
\tBusiness is down 10.3 percent this year after four casino closings in 2014. Those include Revel, a $2.6 billion boardwalk high-rise that opened in 2012, and Trump Plaza, once owned by its namesake, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAtlantic City is a disaster,\u201d Trump said during last week\u2019s CNN debate, which was watched by about 23 million people. \u201cMaybe I\u2019ll blame Chris.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tChristie offered no defense.<\/p>\n
\tThe governor in January appointed an emergency manager to oversee Atlantic City\u2019s finances. He said in interviews this year that he saw positive signs, including more business at remaining casinos and higher revenue from non-gambling entities.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIf we can get the governmental piece under control, I think the economic piece in Atlantic City is really positive,\u201d he said in a June press conference.<\/p>\n
\tYear to date, remaining operators are up 3.2 percent. But the trend\u2019s persistence is uncertain.<\/p>\n
\tAugust marked the first time this year that gambling take for the surviving casinos was down from the same month a year earlier. The calendar has a share of blame. Labor Day weekend, which draws crowds, took place in September; in 2014, it was in August.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAtlantic City is still a good cash cow,\u201d Mayor Don Guardian told reporters Tuesday after the Local Finance Board meeting approved the budget. \u201cWe\u2019re wounded. We\u2019re not dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tCaesars Entertainment Corp., which owns three casinos there, this month opened a $125 million conference center. The facility connects to Harrah\u2019s hotel, where room bookings for the next year have soared to 97,000 from 7,000 a year ago, according to a company statement.<\/p>\n
\tYet thanks to the casino closings, the community must lean more on residents, a third living in poverty.<\/p>\n
\tIn August, Standard & Poor\u2019s dropped its credit rating on the city to B, five levels into junk. Timothy Little, an analyst, cited in his report \u201cthe lack of clear and implementable reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIf the aid legislation isn\u2019t signed this year, Atlantic City will lose about $50 million, according to a statement from the Casino Association of New Jersey.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe city would need to replace that revenue by other sources -\u2013 presumably the property taxpayers of Atlantic City,\u201d according to the group\u2019s statement. \u201cThese bills are our best hope for a solution to these pressing problems and it is unfortunate they are being held hostage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe governor can wait to act until the Assembly, where the aid measures were introduced, meets again. The house has no sessions scheduled as members face re-election in November.<\/p>\n
\tMoody\u2019s Investors Service, which rates Atlantic City at Caa1, seven steps into junk, said \u201csubstantial challenges\u201d remain because the current spending plan was balanced with more than $70 million of one-time fixes, including the redirected casino revenues.<\/p>\n
\tThe city faces a $90 million deficit in 2016, Josellyn Yousef, vice president at Moody\u2019s, said in a statement Wednesday. Also, struggling casinos are \u201can ongoing risk because the city would lose additional property-tax revenues if they scale back or close,\u201d she said.
\n\t\u2013With assistance from Romy Varghese in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
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Elise Young, Bloomberg \u00b7 September 23, 2015 at 12:00 pm 1 Bills to provide fresh financial backing for Atlantic City have spent weeks on Governor Chris Christie\u2019s desk as casinos say he\u2019s withholding crucial aid. New Jersey\u2019s Local Finance Board…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}