West Wendover home owners will see a $5.00 to $10.00 increase on their property tax bill after a vote of the Recreation District to increase the Standby and Service Charge.
The increase is the first in 10 years according to Rec. Board Administrator Jamey Richardson.
The Standby and Service Charge was instituted in 2003 in the midst of slump in the gaming/tourism industry by the Recreation District.
The Recreation District was created over 25 years ago by the then unincorporated town West Wendover to take advantage of a Nevada law that allowed local governments to levy a hotel room tax to finance recreation related projects. The Recreation District first and still most expensive project was the Toana Vista Golf course.
In October 2002 the district successfully lobbied the city to increase room taxes to 16 percent of the room rate, the highest room tax rate in the state. But even that increase could not stem the growing tide of red ink. 2002 was a particularly bad season and the golf course posted a $400,000 operating deficit
While it has the same effect as a property tax the Standby and Service Charge can be instituted without a vote of the electorate. A previous the charge was also levied but was assessed only on the five major West Wendover Casinos and to the few owners of homes then adjacent to the golf course. At its peak in the early 1990’s the old charge collected about a quarter of a million dollars a year. The first Standby and Service charge was first reduced and then eliminated in the late 1990’s.
The new charge was instituted on a citywide basis raised the tax bill for the average Wendover homeowner between $100 and $200 a year. The impact on commercial property owners was much greater and was blamed by many developers and potential developers on the slow down and then halt of new housing West Wendover.
Critics of the new charge asserted that the city wide assessment was inherently unfair and that residents and home owners were being asked to subsidize the expenses of a property few of them used or gained any direct benefit from.
Wendover casinos on the other hand use the golf course as part of their marketing campaigns to individual golfers and also host golf tournaments.
According to the golf course the rate for a round of golf costs $43 with cart rental included, hotel guests are charged a discounted $32. Proponents of the current charge also contend that while non-casino individual properties are charged more the cumulative bill for the casinos is makes up the bulk of the total charge.
The Peppermill has a total charge bill of $50,000 and with its smaller properties pays a total of about $60,000 to $70,000 roughly the same amount as the total charge assessed on all the mobile home parks and apartments.
Desert View Mobile Home Park is assessed for almost $30,000f.
But where the casinos can pass their fee on to their customers the owners of the trailer parks and apartments pass theirs on to their tenants. For the residents of Desert View that figures out to roughly about $600 a year per local family. Home owners pay at most $200 a year.
On the other hand the increase in the charge is negligible compare to the annual three percent increase in the charge for city services of water and sewer or garbage collection.
After almost a quarter of a century those increase have seen service bills that began at about $35.00 are now almost double that.