County commissioners are attempting to renegotiate the reimbursement to Penn National Gaming for road and infrastructure improvements the company made to support the Hollywood Casino Perryville facility.
After conducting an analysis of the costs for the improvements provided by Penn National, the county is looking to only reimburse the corporation for a
Recently, Penn National had said that the county and Perryville owed the company $4.4 million in reimbursements.
The county divided the costs accrued by Penn National into four categories: Route 222 improvements; sewer and pump station improvements in Perryville; costs associated with the South Basin site; and improvements to the Chesapeake Overlook parkway, county director of economic development Vernon Thompson added.
"The commissioners are being very careful with what they commit the taxpayers to support," Thompson said.
The county hopes to only reimburse 65 percent of the Route 222 improvements, or about $1.2 million, while Perryville reimburses the remaining 35 percent, or about $600,000, per the agreement reached in September 2009, Hodge said.
The county commissioners also do not want to pick up the $1 million tab for the improvements made to the Perryville's sewer lines and pump station.
"The majority of the commissioners have said that they don't want to pay for anything but the upgrades to Route 222 and the I-95 exit," Hodge said. "Some of the upgrades made in that construction process directly benefit (Perryville) and not the county."
The county will see if Penn National will agree to these terms in the coming days, but they will also look to avoid a disagreement.
"We certainly don't want to go to litigation," Hodge added.
The reimbursement to Penn National is just one line item on a list of projects to be funded by the county's appropriation of slots revenue.
A public hearing at 7 p.m. on April 12 in Elkton is set for the board to listen to public comments on the final proposal, which will include priorities of Perryville and Cecil County.
Perryville planned to vote on its separate spending plan Tuesday evening.
Final approval of the plan by Cecil County is expected on April 19.
Both Cecil County and Perryville receive a portion of the revenue from Hollywood Casino Perryville as part of a state agreement allowing the gambling facility to operate.
An advisory panel was created to help determine the county's multi-year spending plan for slots revenue to nearby communities impacted by the casino per its agreement.
A six-member subcommittee of the Local Development Council (LDC) met with Cecil County commissioners March 10 to go over the county priority list of 19 projects slated to receive funding from slots revenue.
The subcommittee later discussed the requests, rejecting four items, while transferring funding from those items to beef up the amount of money to be used for community local impact grants.
Ultimately, on March 30 the LDC approved a five of eight projects in a county plan that restricts funding to those projects that are west of Route 272, a boundary established by the prior board of county commissioners as the "immediate area" impacted by the casino.
Hodge thinks the council rejected too many of the proposed projects because of a narrow interpretation of the language in the agreement.
"I don't think the Rising Sun High School issue was raised carefully enough," Hodge said Tuesday of one of the county's top priority projects.
He added that the students and public served by that project would primarily be located west of the Route 272 delineation line. That project would cost the county $1.4 million next fiscal year, and would replace all of the outdated HVAC equipment at the school.
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