Some might call it a robbery.
The Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission is cutting tax rates 5 percent for casinos, thus deleting millions of dollars that voters believed would go to statewide historic preservation projects and community colleges.
While gambling invites people to lose their money, consider the positive impact of the other two. Voters in 1990 approved casinos in three historic mining towns — Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek — because it was touted that a portion of gaming tax revenues would go for historic preservation projects across the state via the new State Historical Fund. The remarkable results are seen in communities large and small: repairs and renovations of buildings that define the character of the place, bringing jobs and economic returns, and boosting heritage tourism.
Since 1993, the State Historical Fund has made 3,779 competitive grants totaling $247 million to public entities and non-profit organizations. The fund’s annual average revenue has been $13 million. One study shows that every $1 grant has the economic return of $6, for an impact of about $330 million by the historical fund on the state economy.
A pot of gold attracts covetous eyes, and the state leads the way, with a quarter of the grants to state property and projects. State law stipulates that 50.1 percent of the historical fund must go for statewide grants, and the balance to History Colorado (formerly the Colorado Historical Society), which administers the fund. The Colorado legislature quit allocating money to the historical society; historical fund dollars fill the gap.
The historical society was pushed from its location at 14th and Broadway to 12th and Broadway by the Colorado Supreme Court, and the legislature decided the State Historical Fund could help build the new museum to the tune of $5 million a year until 2045, or $185 million total.
When our golden State Capitol dome began collapsing after years of neglect, the legislature decreed the historical fund should contribute $4 million for three years, and $5 million for the fourth year, for a total of $17 million.
There is definitely a dent in the statewide grants that have made such great improvements in our communities.
Colorado Preservation Inc., a statewide advocacy group, volunteered to help protect the fund’s statewide grants by raising money to replace them in the dome budget. Private fundraising reaches out to corporations, school kids and everyone else, with the first major check coming from a group of retired teachers.
In 2008, maximum casino bets were raised from $5 to $100, and it was decided the community college system could share the wealth. The legislature’s Blue Book that explains proposed bills to voters predicted a rosy future indeed, with $29 million in the first year to the colleges — and voters believed it. When it passed, there was much agonizing over how the bounty would be split. Would the colleges get all tax proceeds from any bet over $5? How would the original historical fund be protected? A complicated formula was devised so the voters’ original beneficiary, historic preservation, would not suffer.
Except things didn’t go as predicted: The smoking ban was enforced in casinos, gas prices soared, the economy tanked. Colorado had 11 casinos in 1991, and 75 a year later. By 2010, it was 40, and now 37. The first allotments last fall were $24 million to the State Historical Fund and $5 million to community colleges.
Community colleges give individuals the education, tools and opportunities to improve their lives, just as the historical fund gives new life to countless communities that were wasting away. To take money from these opportunities by giving tax breaks to casinos short-changes all of us.
Gov. John Hickenlooper is trying to undo that tax cut for casinos, and that’s the right thing for Colorado.
Freelance columnist Joanne Ditmer has been writing on environmental and urban issues for The Post since 1962.
