School Board to discuss proposed tourism tax district

By Jean Reid Norman

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 | 1:30 a.m.

The Clark County School Board at Thursday's meeting is scheduled to weigh in on the city of Las Vegas’ plan to create a tourism improvement district on 4.5 acres downtown where Mayor Oscar Goodman wants to see a mob museum built.

The tourism district would direct 75 percent of sales tax revenue generated from a proposed retail and casino development on the site back to the city, which plans to use the money to create a public parking garage and open space or plaza.

Los Angeles-based developer CIM Group, owner of the Lady Luck Casino, has proposed building a $291 million mixed-use project that would include retail space and possibly a hotel and casino.

In addition, a nonprofit group is working on renovating the old post office, a historic building, to use for the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, city spokesman Jace Radke said.

A study done last year for the city by Applied Analysis estimates the plan would cost the Clark County School District $824,800 to $953,400 from its general fund to educate the children of employees hired from out of area for the project.

The site, which currently holds the old post office, Downtown Transportation Center and a small park, is already part of the downtown redevelopment area created in 1986. The area diverts taxes from increased property values to redevelopment purposes.

The tourism improvement district would affect sales tax, but the site currently generates no sales tax, Radke said.

The bottom line, Radke said, is that the smaller portion of sales tax the School District would get from the project with the tourism improvement district in place would be more than it is getting without the tourism district.

That has been the case with the downtown redevelopment area, he said.

“The city’s argument is that without the redevelopment agency, redevelopment would not have happened so tax revenue would not have grown,” Radke said. “The School District would be getting almost nothing instead of what they get now.”

The School District still receives taxes on the 1986 value of the property in the redevelopment area and it receives a percentage of taxes on the increases in property value since 1986 toward its debt service on construction of schools, said Jeremy Aguero, a principal of Applied Analysis.

School Board President Terri Janison said she wants to hear more about how the tourism district will affect schools, but she has reservations.

“I’m concerned about this one,” Janison said. “I’m very concerned about $800,000-plus price tag on money it would cost the district.”

She said she has seen the city’s figures about how redevelopment projects such as the World Market Center have brought more revenue to schools. By the city’s calculations, the World Market Center has raised the School District’s property tax revenue from that site from $38,920 in 2005 to $681,482 in 2008.

But individual examples do not tell the whole story, Janison said.

Aguero said the School Board needs to weigh the short-term cost against potential long-term gain – an equation that underlies every redevelopment decision.

“If there is a general belief that the project will not be constructed without the tourism improvement district, then (the district) is good thing for everyone involved,” he said.