County departments need a wake-up call that one of their biggest crutches to shore up funding gaps is gone, Kane County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay said Wednesday.
McConnaughay expanded a call she made last month for county departments to start considering budgets that don't rely on riverboat gambling proceeds to cover any shortfalls. McConnaughay said she's still getting weekly requests to use riverboat money for various needs.
A new report shows revenue is down at Elgin's Grand Victoria Casino by 24 percent compared to August 2010. The county is working off projections that it will receive about $5.5 million from the riverboat next year, one of the lowest totals ever. The new data means even that forecast may be too high. In its heyday, the riverboat sent about $12 million a year to the county's coffers.“You're taking a huge hit,” McConnaughay said. “This is the impact of the Des Plaines casino license. There's already no money in there for farmland preservation. If a Chicago casino goes through, we're going to get hit again. I just don't think there's any money to count on. This is an unstable, unreliable fund source.”
Casino Dollars Getting Away
Since Rahm and Quinn can't play nice, Des Plaines is making out like bandits:
Of course, this lends a bit of credence to Quinn's assertion that Illinois is at a saturation point with casinos for the moment. Any Chicago casino is going to just move the same money around to another pocket. We figured that would only benefit Quinn though - he lost every county inthe state except Cook. St. Clair (East St. Louis) and Alexander (Cairo) Counties. What does he care if Kane County or even Indiana casinos lose money?