A bill that would more than double the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund grants doled out to the state’s cities and towns is once again making its way through the legislative process.

Gov. Ned Lamont vetoed last year’s version of the proposal nine months ago.

The latest version, approved 47-4 by the legislature’s Appropriations Committee late last week, again calls for $139,380,000 to be transferred annually from the state’s General Fund to the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund, starting with the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2025.

In the current fiscal year, the grants will total $52.6 million.

State Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, who has been pushing for years to shore up the fund, said Monday she’s hopeful this year’s bill will become law.

“Well, hope springs eternal ― and it’s the right thing to do,” she said when asked the reason for her optimism. “We’re always looking for ways to make towns whole, for them to have dedicated sources of revenue and not put all the burden on the property tax (to support services).”

“We have the resources,” she said, referring to the increase in gaming revenues that fuel the fund.

The money comes from the state’s share of the slot-machine revenues the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes generate at their respective casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, and, since 2021, from the taxes they pay on their sports betting and online gaming revenues.

Each year, the fund grants are distributed to the vast majority of the state’s cities and towns based on the tax-exempt property they harbor, equalized net grand lists and per capita income.

“If (legislative) leadership brings it up, it will pass,” Osten said of the bill.

She said Lamont’s 2023 veto was mostly the result of his aversion to a provision in the bill limiting the power of the governor and the legislature to reduce the annual transfer from the General Fund to the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund. The bill would have required the governor to declare an emergency and a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature.

The current bill includes the same provision, which Osten said she’d be willing to have removed, if necessary, to get the bill signed into law.

The bill also contains a new provision calling for the towns of Ledyard and Montville, which host the casinos, to receive additional grants of up to $600,000 each if the state acts to prohibit towns from taxing non-Indian property on reservation land, a process known as “dual taxation.”

Last year, a state panel appointed to study the issue failed to come up with a recommendation. Osten, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee and a member of the panel, recommended that non-tribal businesses that operate on land the federal government has taken into trust for a tribe be exempt from local taxation.

It was estimated that such a policy would cost Ledyard and Montville between $500,000 and $700,000 a year in tax revenue.

Testifying before the Appropriations Committee at a public hearing last month, Rodney Butler, the Mashantucket tribal chairman, voiced support for the bill increasing the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund.

“From the inception of the slots deal with Governor (Lowell) Weicker back in 1993, it has been a priority for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation to have dollars from the agreement go directly to cities and towns in the State of Connecticut,” Butler said.

“... As a small sovereign nation,” he said, “we understand all too well what it takes to run a local government and that every dollar counts when it comes to funding critical programs and services, which is fundamental to our advocacy in repealing dual taxation of non-Indian personal property.”

In a statement, James Gessner Jr., the Mohegan tribal chairman, said his tribe was in full support of increasing Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund grants to municipalities.

However, he said, the Mohegan tribe believes it would be premature to guarantee Ledyard and Montville additional grants without first addressing a longstanding agreement between the Mohegans and Montville that requires the tribe to pay the town $500,000 annually in lieu of property taxes.

Jeffrey Beckham, secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management and chairman of the panel that studied the dual-taxation issue, opposed the bill increasing the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Fund on several grounds.

In public-hearing testimony, he said the bill “seeks to operate outside” the state’s biennial budget process and “also fails to recognize the unprecedented growth in municipal aid under Governor Lamont’s administration.”

Beckham opposed the provision of the bill guaranteeing Ledyard and Montville additional grants in the event the state prohibits taxation on tribal lands. He said the dual-taxation matter is a federal one best addressed by Congress.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com