Las Vegas (from a distance) – The Las Vegas Stadium Authority has posted yet another budget deficit, and has racked up a string of them since July of 2019, the first time the owner of the Oakland Raiders Las Vegas Allegiant Stadium showed a budget shortfall.
The November 2019 difference between budget and actual number is a negative $117,161. The posting before that, for the September 2019 meeting, showed a difference of a negative $330,117. For August, the budget deficit was a negative $474,094. The total of the posted deficits comes to $921,372. That’s not based on a “Freedom of Information Act” filing – that’s based on the data posted on the Las Vegas Stadium website, and a result of simply reading the agenda links for each month – I even presented them, here. It’s all there.
The deficits are happening because there’s a constant shortfall difference between the expected revenue from the stadium room tax of 88/100ths of one percent, or .88, and what they have actually collected. That, in turn, is due to the problem of drops in visitors to Las Vegas that have been constant since July of 2017. Some tried to blame the problem on the 1 October Mass Shooting of 2017, but the decline had started before then.
This problem was something I pointed to over two years ago and tried to share with Las Vegas Stadium Authority staffer Jeremy Aguero via a phone call that’s now over a year old. He laughed at my claims and in a way that was patently insulting, and dare I say, racist. So, I figured that since I knew the Las Vegas Stadium Authority budget situation was just going to get worse, I’d let the actual events speak for me. Thus.
These numbers are no laughing matter. The question for the board, the one the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board should ask, is what does the annual comparison of stadium tax revenue and bond debt plus debt coverage ratio look like? Jeremy should not show the bond debt without the amount added by the 1.5 to one coverage ratio, because to not do so would be a lie.
What I expect the Las Vegas Stadium Authority will find out, is that in. a few years, Clark County will wind up dipping into its general fund to pay for the bond debt when the coverage ratio amounts are included. The Board will also find that the rosy scenario of constant stadium tax revenue increases of over 7 percent per year is just not the reality.
Stay tuned.