The $5,266,401 payment, up from 2013’s $4.9 million contribution, is 2 percent of FireKeepers Casino Hotel’s annual slot machine revenue and was given Friday to the Local Revenue Sharing Board. Its members — tribal and governmental representatives — will meet to determine how the money will be distributed to recipients.
Art Kale, chairman of the Local Revenue Sharing Board, said during Friday’s event at the casino the dollars have been used in the past to fund the Calhoun County Trailway, legal services for military veterans and a science, technology, engineering and mathematics lab for Albion and Marshall schools.
“These grants have encouraged collaboration that have touched all corners of our county,” Kale said.
The Athens-based tribe, which owns and operates the facility, also paid $16,565,604 to the state of Michigan. House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, accepted the check on Friday, saying the state was fortunate to see “fruits of (the tribe’s) labor.”
This week’s distribution brings the casino’s total payments to $21.9 million to the revenue-sharing board and $58 million to the state since opening in 2009. It opened a resort-style hotel in December 2012 and announced a year later it had reached $200 million in cumulative paid labor costs to its 1,800 employees.
R. Bruce McKee, the casino’s CEO, said the hotel has had a more than 90 percent occupancy rate since opening.
The payment to the revenue-sharing board is distributed through a tiered system: some of it goes toward administrative costs and then toward reimbursement requests. Eighty percent of what’s left goes to governments losing tax revenue because the casino and the tribe’s Pine Creek Reservation are untaxable.
The remainder provides money to municipalities closest to the casino and through a competitive grant process.
Almost a year after opening its resort-style hotel, the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi has put $5.3 million toward local municipalities and schools.
More than a dozen recipients, including at least eight schools and seven governments, have been given funding from the casino payments.
The tribe said it has also awarded more than $36.3 million in contracts — $5.8 million of that in Calhoun, Jackson and Branch counties — in the state during the past year.
Tribal Council Chairman Homer Mandoka praised the casino’s ties with the state and area municipalities and said the growing contributions have been made possible because of the tribe’s leadership. He said the tribe may also discuss with the revenue-sharing board additional ways to fund infrastructure development.
“It’s not just about handshakes and a cup of coffee,” he said. “It’s about a relationship.”
Call Jennifer Bowman at 966-0589. Follow her on Twitter: @jenn_bowman
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