TULALIP — Some Tulalip Casino employees received notices Thursday of a mandatory staff meeting today, which fueled reports of possible layoffs.
Casino officials were unavailable for comment. The casino employs about 1,600 people.
Tribal officials previously have said the casino is doing well, despite basing revenue projections on, in their words, "overinflated estimates" of how much money the casino would make.
The Tulalips described the situation as a temporary cash-flow problem because the tribe is paying off a $120 million loan used to build the casino, a sewage treatment plant and a new health clinic in five years.
There’s a balloon payment at the end of that time. While the casino was undergoing some belt-tightening, tribal officials said layoffs would be a last resort.
Before the new casino opened in June, the tribe had fewer financial obligations because the casino was in a building about one-fifth the size of the new one, and the tribe owned that building.
The new $78 million, 227,000-square-foot casino is the center of the Tulalip Tribes’ business plans in and around the Quil Ceda Village shopping and business park.
Casino revenues are used for many tribal programs as well as millions of dollars in grants to numerous community groups and public agencies each year.
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