Dauphin County approved this year’s round of $11 million worth of gaming grants and is moving forward with some changes to the program following a PennLive investigation.
The county commissioners on Wednesday approved funding over 150 grants to nonprofits and local government agencies from gambling revenue guaranteed under Pennsylvania law. The commissioners asked the solicitors’ office to review the Gaming Act before they propose additional reforms to the program and said all new grantees will be required to submit progress reports and a final project audit — accountability measures that are ostensibly required but which the county regularly waives.
The board unanimously funded most of the grant recommendations from the gaming advisory board, which is tasked with reviewing the applications. However, in a split vote, the commissioners also increased the funding amounts for some grants addressing food security, affordable housing and workforce development, and added several other grants for those types of programs that the advisory board had not recommended to fund. It also voted to use gaming money to fund an update to the county’s comprehensive plan…