Bellagio puts Wynn atop property taxpayer list

Jeff Schweers

Wednesday, June 10, 1998 | 2:55 a.m.

Once again, Steve Wynn has unseated Nevada Power as the top property taxpayer in Clark County, thanks to the nearly finished construction of the $1.8 billion Bellagio resort casino.

With its 9-acre lake lapping against a replicated Tuscan village, art gallery and expanded theater for the Cirque de Soleil performing troupe, the 3,000-room luxury resort has pushed Wynn's company, Mirage Resorts, to the top of Clark County's 1998-99 list of property taxpayers.

The Bellagio, scheduled to open Oct. 15, "put him right over the top," Assessor Mark Schofield said.

Wynn's company also owns the Mirage, Treasure Island and Boardwalk hotel-casinos on the Strip, the Golden Nugget hotel-casinos in downtown Las Vegas and Laughlin, Shadow Creek Golf Course in North Las Vegas and the Palladium nightclub.

The list, posted on the Clark County Assessor's website last week, ranks the top 25 taxpayers in Clark County. Wynn first topped the list in 1995 after an aggressive buildup along the Strip pushed his ranking over that of Nevada Power, but the electric company took the lead last year with its expansion, Schofield said.

"This is a good news-bad news situation," Mirage Resorts Vice-President Alan Feldman said. "The good news is you're number one. The bad news is you're paying taxes."

But that's just part of the responsibility of being a major corporation in Nevada, Feldman said. "You expect to be a big taxpayer."

Not surprisingly, 16 of the top taxpayers are hotel-casino companies, with a handful of developers and utilities thrown in. All told, the 25 account for 17.35 percent of the county's tax roll.

Filling out the top 10 are Circus Circus Properties, Las Vegas Hilton Corp./Bally's Grand Inc., MGM Grand Hotel Inc., Howard Hughes Properties, Oasis Residential Inc., Caesars Palace Realty Corp., the Boyd Group and Sprint/Central Telephone Co.

All the gaming properties in the county have an assessed value that's 14.62 percent of the overall assessed value, Schofield said, and with other luxury resort casinos such as Mandalay Bay, the Venetian and Paris coming on line in the next two years, gaming's prominence on the property tax rolls isn't likely to falter.

"That is certainly indicative of the fact it is the primary industry in Clark County," Schofield said. "When you consider about 50 percent of your property taxes go to support local schools, they're a major contributor in that."

Schofield said that kind of economic clout obviously translates into access.

"For anyone to suggest they aren't a major player here, they are not seeing very clearly," Schofield said.

Carole Vilardo, executive director of the Nevada Taxpayers Association, said property taxes alone do not give gaming its clout. Rather, it's a combination of property, sales and gaming tax that accounts for 75 percent of the state's revenue -- a point the industry always raises when somebody starts talking about raising the gaming tax.

"The overall fact that they are such a driver of the economy, not only as taxpayers, is what makes elected officials sensitive to how they perceive issues," Vilardo said.

Adding to the clout of gaming businesses, Vilardo said, is their political involvement.

"They make campaign contributions. They are known," Vilardo said. "They go out of their way to know who the policy- makers are statewide and locally and nationally."

The larger story that these tax charts show, Vilardo said, is why gaming plays such a large role in policy.

"Anything done that has a potential negative effect to the industry, whether federal, state or something done locally," she said, "is definitely going to be looked at by the policy-makers because it has a 'trickle-down economics' effect on the rest of the taxpayers."

Feldman said it's not the tax bill that gives a company clout, it's the work force.

"Whatever political clout we have derives from the 18,000 employees who live in the state and the city, whose families live here and go to school, go to church and use the hospitals," Feldman said.

The Mirage and other casinos are involved in local government out of enlightened self-interest, he said.

"If you're in any business about to watch government take action detrimental to your business, you have an absolute responsibility to speak out in your own behalf," Feldman said.

But Wynn has to argue his case just like anybody else, Feldman said, and he doesn't always get his way, contrary to popular perception. For example, the County Commission fought Wynn on the extension of Harmon Avenue across his Bellagio property, forcing him to redesign the lagoon. More recently, Wynn lost a battle with Caesars Palace over right-of-way for a private monorail.

"The reality is if what you are arguing doesn't make sense to the greater good of the public, then it is not going to happen," Feldman said. "If someone has a fundamentally bad idea or it's not in the public interest, it should be shot down."