Casinos and jobs — the Connecticut experience

By DAVID HULSE

As Sullivan County prepares for the advent of up to five Indian casino resorts, some measure of things to come can be drawn from the experience of small communities in Connecticut. Indian gaming has been in place in New London County, near the state’s far southeastern shore, for almost 20 years.

Foxwoods is the area’s senior casino resort. Located near the City of Norwich, in the Town of Ledyard, it is owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, which began gambling operations there with a high stakes bingo parlor in 1986. The casino today bills itself as the world’s largest casino resort and employs 11,500 people.

Immediately across the Thames River to the west lies the Town of Montville, where the Mohegan Tribe created the Mohegan Sun casino resort in 1996. Mohegan Sun features a 34-story, 1,200-room hotel; 6,300 slot machines and a gaming area of 300,000 square feet. The Mohegan’s development partner is Trading Cover Associates, the same group associated with the Stockbridge-Munsee project at Bridgeville.

Today, the two casinos employ more than 20,000 people and draw 70,000 to 80,000 visitors to the region daily.

The City of Norwich has a population of about 36,000, slightly smaller than Poughkeepsie. Ledyard has 15,000 residents on its 38 square miles and Montville’s 19,000 reside on 42 square miles. Both are described as combinations of suburban and rural communities.

What about casino jobs?

Many people have heralded the development of new employment opportunities as a principal reason why casinos would be good for Sullivan County. Casinos would be a way to help keep our young people home, proponents have argued.

To some extent, that has been true in Connecticut. A spokesman at the Norwich Workforce Development Office said Foxwoods began operations about the same time that the region’s primary employer, submarine builder Electric Boat, began to cut back its operations.

In Norwich today the casinos employ one of every four persons, and when one member of a household is a casino employee, there are usually two or more, as the casinos did not pay the $18 to $22 per hour that Electric Boat paid.

But the $10 to $15 per hour that they did pay took up of the slack from the lost manufacturing jobs and depleted the local employment pool. “They’re good jobs for people who aren’t college bound, most with a pretty good management track for advancement,” said one media observer.

“I don’t know if these jobs are careers,” said Montville Mayor James Jaskiewicz, noting again “It’s not manufacturing. It’s not $25 an hour at Electric Boat, but it picked up the slack and with the benefits, it’s pretty good,” he said of Mohegan Sun.

According to its Internet site, Mohegan Sun provides employees with fully paid medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage; life insurance and optional supplemental life insurance; a 401(k) with matching funds excellent free meals and unique employee events. The casino offers healthcare benefits to domestic partners and dependents of full-and part-time employees. Employees park on-site at the $29 million state-of-the-art Eagleview Employee Center that includes fitness, wellness and computer centers, a bank, dry cleaner and employee store.

How do new workers fit in?

With an existing labor force of only about 19,000 between the two towns, the casinos have recruited workers from other areas. A growing foreign immigrant population has prompted the teaching of English as a second language in the area’s public schools. Today, some 42 languages are spoken in New London County schools, where 30 languages were spoken a decade ago.

The changing workforce recently prompted Norwich to open a Newcomers Center to help immigrant workers with transition and settlement problems.

Some casino workers are bused daily to and from larger surrounding metropolitan areas, but one observer stated that 66 to 75 percent of workers reside in the area.

Ledyard’s median household income is $67,000 and with a median home sale price of $191,000; most casino salaries will not support a home purchase.

In a November 2004 interview with the online journal The Kent Tribune, Ledyard Mayor Susan Mendenhall said her town faces a housing crisis. Many families are “hot bunking,” she said, a Navy term for sharing quarters.

Housing costs appear to be the problem. While Ledyard’s census population remained practically unchanged from 1990 through 2004, almost 90 percent of the housing stock in Ledyard is made up of single-family homes, and there simply are not enough homes at moderate prices to go around.

Montville’s population grew by 14.4 percent in the same period. While home sale prices are slightly lower at a median of $169,000 and the average household income is lower at $59,000, Jaskiewicz confirmed that his community has the same problem.

“Living conditions vary among cultures,” he prefaced, “but we’ve got single family homes with 40 people living in them in shifts.”

Homes are shared among workers with differing work hours in the casino’s 24-hour schedule. “We’ve made inquiries to the office of the state’s housing prosecutor, but there really aren’t any laws against it,” he said.

So far, maintenance of those properties has not been a problem. “As a matter of fact, I’ve got some long-time residents who don’t keep their places as well,” Jaskiewicz said.

A tale of two towns

According to comments from the two mayors, their towns have had considerably different experiences with Indian casinos.

Both town leaders blame the state for failing to fairly compensate the towns for casino-related costs they have taken on. While the state’s take on the casinos slot machine revenues was expected to increase by 42 percent between 1999 and 2004, the revenues returned to the towns has fallen from 47 percent of the state’s total to 21 percent. And that amount is shared equally by all Connecticut towns, with no preferences to the host communities.

In addition to increased costs for services, Ledyard has been hard hit by losses in taxable property.

With casino revenues and the growth of the resort, the 200-acre Mashantucket reservation has expanded to include holding of 2,700 acres in Ledyard, and 3,220 acres in neighboring North Stonington and Preston townships. Most of this property remains taxable, but federally held, tax-exempt “in trust” properties in Ledyard have increased to include 1,481 acres.

Mendenhall admitted that Ledyard’s history with Foxwoods has been marked by animosity, a situation she wants to change.

There is a $500,000 annual impact fee that was negotiated prior to the opening of Mohegan Sun, but Jaskiewicz said the agreement never provided for any cost-of-living increases. He was admittedly stunned to learn of the $15 million fee Sullivan County had negotiated with Trading Cove and the Stockbridge-Munsees. “I could fund a third of my budget with that,” he said.

Still, Jaskiewicz said his town has been fortunate in many ways with Mohegan Sun, as many of the tribal leaders lived in the community prior to the casino’s opening. The town has lost some taxable property, but the Mohegans have agreed to limit their property holding to 750 acres.

Jaskiewicz said increased traffic has not been a big issue since casino traffic exits directly from Interstate 395 onto the Mohegan Sun access road.

Police and fire costs have not been impacted, he said. In fact, the Mohegans maintain their own police and fire departments and work in mutual aid with Montville services.

The tribe has also pitched and aided the town with financial assistance. Jaskiewicz pointed to a $2.5 to $3 million contribution the tribe will make toward a new $22 million water well pumping system project that will serve three or four towns.

“Our situation is not really bad. The truly important thing is keeping communications open and working things out. Don’t be afraid to ask,” he said.