Lancaster Event Center asking County Board for extra funds to get through COVID financial loss

The Lancaster Event Center is asking the County Board to raise property taxes for the center to gain an extra 400,000 dollars to keep their doors open and cover the cost in lost revenue from the coronavirus.

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – The Lancaster Event Center is asking the County Board to raise property taxes for the Center to get $400,000 dollars to keep their doors open and cover the cost in lost revenue from the coronavirus.

The Lancaster Event Center has lost thousands of dollars from cancelled shows and a several month shut down, the Center now asking for help from Lancaster County taxpayers. This past Monday the Event Center went in front of the County Board asking them to raise property taxes by several dollars in order for the venue to recoup an extra 400,000 dollars. The center saying they need that money to keep their lights on and doors open. That would be about four dollars more per household in taxes.

“This would end up being very little out of taxpayers pockets, less then 4 dollars. It would still allow us to stay open even if we have to shut down completely or reduce the capacity again or lose additional events since we have already had to cancel 150 this year out of our 400 events we were supposed to have” Jennifer Cusick-Rawlinson, a member of Lancaster Co. Agricultural Society, said.

Several weeks ago the Lancaster Event Center went in front of the board asking for a property tax increase so they could receive roughly 2.2  million dollars, that would have added an extra $30 dollars per household. After several taxpayers expressed their concerns on the increase, the board said no and the Event Center went back to the drawing board, coming up with the $400,00 dollar increase instead.

“I don’t know what better value you could have then investigating something like 4 dollars into a facility that turns 40 million back to your community” Cusick-Rawlinson said.

Channel 8 News reached out to the County Board on this but have not heard back. The Board has not given the Event Center a final answer on the property tax increase, the venue said they will continue to wait until an answer is finalized.