MONTICELLO, NY — The Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) on August 25 announced that proposed agreements had been reached with each of the two organizations seeking to open casinos in the Town of Thompson.

The deal with Mohegan Sun calls for a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) program in which for the first eight years of the program, the organization would make payments to taxing municipalities based on an assessment of about $47 million. The property is currently taxed on an assessment of about $10.4 million. If a casino is awarded to Orange County and a smaller casino is built in Monticello, the assessment would be lower.

The deal with Empire Resorts and the proposed Montreign Resort Casino calls for a PILOT agreement based on a top assessment of $53 million; the current assessment is about $1.8 million. The assessment would be lowered depending on how the one or two licenses are awarded in the region.

The proposed tax abatement for the Mohegan Sun project could be worth $36 million for the developers over the 20-year life of the program, but according to the IDA, the project would have an economic impact of more than $3 billion in the region over that same period.

At a public hearing at the government center on the evening of August 15, Ira Steingart, chairman of the IDA board, said he was pleased with the deal, because with most tax abatement projects, the PILOT agreement would not raise the amount of money being paid by the applicant at all.

About a dozen speakers endorsed the tax breaks for the project and repeated the refrain that they were needed to help ensure that the project is successful, and that the project will bring jobs and provide the spark that is needed to re-ignite the local economy.

Shirley Felder, the owner of Sullivan County First Recycling and Refuse, said she had previously been opposed to casinos but now supported them. She said decades ago, when Sullivan County was dotted with numerous hotels, her mother had worked as a maid in eight of them. She said current county residents at the bottom of the economic ladder should have the opportunity to work as a maid in a casino.

While no speaker expressed opposition to the tax abatements, a couple of speakers did not endorse them either. Sullivan County Community College President Karin Hilgersom said she did not know enough about the matter to weigh in one way or the other, but she said she did support the casino project generally. She said she understood that at one time the hospitality program at the college was considered to be one of the best in the country, with an enrollment of more than 100 students, whereas the program now has about 20. She said she hoped a casino would provide employment for graduates of the college.

Resident Ken Walter expressed frustration that the press release regarding the announcement of the proposed deal was issued two hours before the public hearing on the matter, and also that the cost/benefit analysis of the project was not made available to the public with sufficient time for him to read and absorb the information. He said he didn’t know if the proposed arrangement was a good deal for the taxpayers or not.

Steingart said the IDA board would vote on the proposed agreement at a meeting scheduled for August 27; results of the vote were not available as of press time.