Budget Plan Includes Slot Machine Payback

Governor Carcieri released his proposed budget this week, which included many items that his constituents were expecting to see. One of those items was the $968,000 owed to the Narragansett Indian Tribe. The state was supposed to pay them over a three year period for the money owed them from the slot machines at Lincoln Park.

The tribe has not decided if they want the money or not, so Carcieri has decided to put it back into the operating budget. They also wanted to look at the amounts that the state receives from simulcast bets. The state currently gets 4.5% and they decided to increase that amount to the same amount that they get from Greyhound bets. The new amount will be 8.4%.

There were also a variety of other fees that the governor has chosen to impose that had nothing to do with the slot machines, or any sort of gambling. He is increasing professional licensing fees, raising the cost to obtain official certificates such as birth and death, imposing a new $25 court cost fee to dismissed traffic court tickets, as well as selling 30 of Camp Pastore’s 50 acres.

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