Lawmaker suggests permanent fund for some New Mexico slot profits

Deborah Baker

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2000 | 8:51 a.m.

SANTA FE - Some slot-machine proceeds from Indian casinos should go into a permanent fund to finance tribal projects, a lawmaker says.

Sen. Billy McKibben, R-Hobbs, a member of the legislative committee considering a new state-tribal gambling agreement, disclosed his proposal Tuesday.

McKibben said he hopes it would be attractive enough to both tribes and legislators that it would help resolve the casino payments dispute.

"It jars us loose," McKibben said. "It sets in place a permanent fund so all the tribes will derive some long-term benefit from Indian gambling."

Under the proposed legislation, 37.5 percent of any back payments from tribes, and 50 percent of any revenue sharing payments under new compacts, would go into a Native American Permanent Fund. The rest would go to the state.

The permanent fund money would be invested by the state investment officer, and the fund's income would be used for health, economic development, infrastructure development, education and other tribal projects.

An advisory council - six legislators and six non-legislators, including five appointed by the Office of Indian Affairs - would develop guidelines for investing and distributing the fund.

"The secretary of interior surely would be more amenable to approving this, than 16 percent going to the state," said McKibben, who planned to introduce his legislation as early as Wednesday.

The U.S. Interior Department in a letter last week said it could not approve any new agreement that required tribes to make full back payments to the state at the 16 percent rate.

Tribes signed compacts in 1997 that require them to turn over 16 percent of their slot-machine proceeds to the state. But they complained from the start that the rate was illegally high, and only three tribes have been paying in full.

Tribes and the Legislature's Committee on Compacts have been trying to reach some accord on a new compact with a lower revenue sharing rate, but it's not certain whether an agreement will be ready for approval by the Legislature before the session ends Feb. 17.

Tribes had offered to make full back payments in return for a 6.7 percent revenue-sharing rate. The Interior Department said that figure was within an acceptable range.

Tribes are estimated to owe about $67 million in back payments.