ONEIDA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The Oneida Nation announced Wednesday it had a $744 million impact on Brown and Outagamie counties.
Some of the Oneida Nation’s economic impact includes gaming, retail, hotels, construction, financial services, recreation, and agriculture.
The tribe’s study shows those seven categories alone directly employ nearly 2,200 people.
Tehassi Hill, Oneida Nation chairman, tells Fox 11 these are very important facts.
“I think it’s just very important as a government operation and the services that we provide for our tribal members but also being able to know that number, how much we’re offsetting for local governments.”
St. Norbert College is behind the economic impact study.
“We take that direct effect and we add to it those multiplier effects to get the bigger picture of how impactful,” said Marc Schaffer, St. Norbert College associate professor of economics.
While the casino has been significant to the area, it’s not the only thing that’s had an impact.
The study points toward Oneida’s health center and its services.
Hill says the study shows a regional impact of $79.4 million.
“We’ve been here a long time and we’re a very large significant part of the community and that we’re willing partners to be able to continue to grow and develop in our region here.”
Education is also a focus of the study.
“If we were to not have our education system here, that’s a saving of over $6 million to the local school districts to have that we run on our own K-12 school system,” Hill said.
The tribe also talked about its goal for the future.
“Other programs and services like housing continue to be an issue. We’re trying to address those issues with more continued housing and public services area,” Hill said.
The study looked at the years 2014 to 2016.
