The Massachusetts Gaming Commission hereby requests public comment on the “concept draft” of the 2016 Community Mitigation Fund Guidelines.  Before beginning any final review of the “concept draft”, the Commission determined that it would seek input from the general public.  The purpose of the “concept draft” is to receive substantial recommendations from parties to enable the Commission to evaluate the concepts in this draft.  The Commission has not adopted these guidelines.

To view the 2016 Community Mitigation Fund Guidelines draft, please click the below link:

• 2016 Community Mitigation Fund Guidelines DRAFT

In addition to a request for comments on MassGaming.com, the Commission is seeking the input of the Gaming Policy Advisory Committee, regional planning agencies, host communities, surrounding communities, communities that entered into a nearby community agreement, communities that petitioned to become a surrounding community, geographically adjacent communities, the general public and other interested parties.  Comments from other communities and governmental entities are also requested.

This concept draft includes a number of draft changes to the 2015 Community Mitigation Fund Guidelines.  The concept draft:

• Expands the potential use of the Fund to include operational impacts relating to the Plainridge Park Facility, as the Plainridge Park Facility is now operational;
• Automatically preserves unused 2015 Community Mitigation Fund Reserve Funds for those communities awarded Reserves in 2015;
• Authorizes communities that were eligible to apply for the 2015 Reserve to apply for the Reserve in 2016, even though they were not awarded $100,000 one-time reserves in 2015;
• Expands the eligibility for the one-time $100,000 Reserve to include host communities;
• Creates new Transportation Planning Fund Grants to enable communities to engage in planning for transportation projects which typically take many years to plan;
• Requires a match or partial match by a governmental applicant or a licensee or both for any specific mitigation requests for assistance to non-governmental entities;
• Establishes a target 2016 award amount of $4.9 million reflecting that the current $14.75 million currently unallocated in the Fund will not be supplemented by additional funds until after the MGM Springfield and Wynn Everett facilities are projected to be operational in 2018;
• Establishes a target limitation of $982,000 for Transportation Planning Grants, equivalent to 20% of the $4.9 million estimated 2016 target award amount;
• Places a limit of $500,000 on the total 2016 awards relating to any Category 2 specific impacts; and
• Allocates $350,000 for the Springfield Historic Preservation Fund, pursuant to a vote by the Commission as part of its consultation with the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

This concept draft continues the 2015 Fund Guidelines practice of having one statewide fund.  As a result, statewide Category 1 and 2 related applications are not limited to an amount reflecting the financial contributions to the Fund of the gaming facility in the specific region.

Comments are requested by 5:00p.m. on December 4, 2015.  To expedite the comment process, we encourage you to submit any comments to the 2016 Community Mitigation Fund Guideline concept draft via e-mail to mgccomments@state.ma.us with ‘2016 CMFG’ in the subject line.