Oakland Raiders Las Vegas NFL Stadium December Room Tax At Low Of $2.6 Million - Update

Oakland Raiders Las Vegas NFL Stadium December Room Tax At Low Of $2.6 Million - Update On Christmas Day 2017, I reported that the November data related to the collection of revenue from the stadium tax on hotel room rates in Clark County and for the construction of the Oakland Raiders planned Las Vegas NFL - UNLV Stadium was the lowest recorded in the brief history of the tax at $3.2 million. This is important because the monthly Hotel Stadium Tax revenue must be enough to not only pay for the Stadium Bond Debt for that month, but also meet what's called a 'debt coverage ratio' of 1.5 to 1, as required by the bond plan, and the bond industry. Even though the Raiders stadium bonds have not been sold as of this writing, if they were, it would become necessary to use the taxpayer-funded Clark County General Fund to pay part of that expense each month. Now, Clark County Chairman Steve Sisolak, the major political backer of the Raiders Las Vegas Stadium, reported on Twitter that the December hotel stadium tax was at $2,633,175 – a full $730,492 less than the November figure of $3,363,667. Since the horrible events of One October, the mass-shooting from the Mandalay Bay Hotel, the final stadium tax revenues have consistently dipped, and along with reports of reduction in the tourism business in Las Vegas and Clark County. The real question is what's the Las Vegas Stadium Authority's take on this news? In the last three meetings, LVSA Chairman Steve Hill, and staff representative Jeremy Aguero have reported on the figures and Aguero has pledged to keep track of and report on the data as it comes in. There has not been any public comment from any board member; the real question is will the LVSA seek to go back to the Nevada Legislature to increase the stadium tax? When I asked Aguero that question, he said “not likely.” This has been an issue for some time. As far back as April 15, 2017 (“Clark County Hotel Tax Revenue For Las Vegas Oakland Raiders NFL Stadium Can’t Cover $750 million Subsidy”), I've reported that the Clark County Stadium Tax was not large enough to pay for a $750 million bond issue of 30 years at 4 percent interest, let alone one at $700 million for 30 years at 4 percent interest (which is an extremely low rate in the market, today.) I also reported on April 17th 2017 that the stadium tax rate should be raised to 1.4 percent (“Clark County Hotel Tax For Las Vegas Oakland Raiders NFL Stadium Should Be 1.4%”). Even with this, Sisolak, in particular, continued to tweet that there was no problem as monies were “ahead of projections” - then publicly released information by the Stadium Authority itself revealed that the stadium tax revenue was below what they forecast it should have been at. The Las Vegas Stadium Authority reported that the August Stadium Tax Revenue of $3,814,072 was $74,335 less than what was planned in its budget. Then, the LVSA reported, in the same chart, that monies from the stadium tax for October and November were less than what was planned in its budget, at $134,216 and $365,336 less, respectively. How this impacts the LVSA is in its own budget: in the last public report, it said that it's budgeted total revenue was $35,022584 and the actual total was $37,476,374 up to November 2017 – a difference of 7 percent. While the LVSA does not publish its monthy forecast for stadium tax revenue (thus stays ahead of my reporting of the situation) we can look at the approved budget for LVSA fiscal year 2018 of a total of $49,900,000 and divide that by 12 months in the year to get a picture of where we are: a needed average of $4,158,333. Since the 2018 LVSA Fiscal Year started July 2017, we have an actual average monthly stadium tax revenue of $3,825,915 – that's -$332,418 from forecast to actual. Thus, it's reasonable to calculate that the next LVSA report will show if not a deficit, then very close to a deficit between the total forecast budget and the actual monies coming in. Since the LVSA uses $2 million of that money for its own purposes, and has not added that in its chart report, we have to assume the program is running a total operating surplus of just $400,000 when Fiscal Years 2017 and 2018 are combined – or worse. And that's for the LVSA – it still leaves outstanding the overall problem of the tax revenue not being large enough to cover the planned Raiders stadium bond debt without using taxpayer dollars in the Clark County General Fund. This is starting to look like the Raiders Deal that brought the team back to Oakland, with promises of no public money to be used, yet reality showing the Clark County taxpayers are on the hook for a giant part of the cost to relocate the Raiders – this time to Las Vegas, last time to Oakland from Los Angeles. Stay tuned.

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