Casinos help to pay for unfunded projects in Niagara Falls

So far this fiscal year, the city has received three-quarterly payments from Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp, totalling US$18.4m.

That leaves $1.7m, as well as what finance director Todd Harrison expects to be an approximately $4.5m fourth-quarter payment from OLG in April. “We’re very, very fortunate to receive this,” said finance director Todd Harrison. “This has given us an ability to address a lot of concerns in the community, particularly on the capital side.”

Despite approving a $28.8m capital budget Tuesday night, the city still has a list of about 75 capital projects currently without funding. The projects total $13.5m and cover a wide range of departments, such as fire, municipal works, parks, and transportation.

However, Harrison said once the city receives the fourth-quarter OLG payment, council could consider approving some of those unfunded projects. He said the municipality could also take advantage of potential future matching federal infrastructure money.

“I will be bringing back another report that tells you exactly what we have the opportunity to do, and at that time council can decide how we want to utilize some of those projects, or if something comes up in the next three months that’s a priority, we can address it at that time, too,” Harrison told councillors Tuesday night.

Under a previous agreement with OLG, Niagara Falls received a fixed-rate of $3 million annually for hosting Casino Niagara and Fallsview Casino. But in 2013, the city signed a new agreement with OLG based on slot and table game revenue, which has since resulted in the municipality receiving about or more than $20m per year.