PA Gets One Week Reprieve to Avert Shutdown

Stakeholders in the Pennsylvania racing industry have been granted an extra week to come up with a plan that shifts a significant portion of the operating costs of the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission to horsemen and the state’s six Thoroughbred and Standardbred track operators.

On Oct. 22, Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration had threatened to pull the plug on racing because the State Racing Fund, which has an annual budget of $20 million to pay for PHRC administrative costs and drug tests, has run dry.

A four-month governor-vs.-legislature budget standoff is preventing a transfer of money from other sources to make up the $6.2 million shortfall.

The State Racing Fund gets its money from a portion of pari-mutuel bets, uncashed tickets, breakage, licensing fees and a mix of other racing-related revenue. But declining handles in Pennsylvania have caused the fund to fail to keep up with the amount budgeted for it in recent years.

Salvatore DeBunda, president of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, said a conference call between his organization and state officials ran late into Thursday evening before both sides agreed to speak again Friday at noon.

In the interim, DeBunda said that on Friday morning, horsemen and track operators retooled their plans for contributing to the PHRC budget with the goal of presenting to the state a long-term solution instead of just a quick fix to get through this year.

“When we got in at 12:00 [Friday], we felt that we were far enough along in the discussions that we requested additional time to work on the issues,” DeBunda said. “It was granted to us [by the Department of Agriculture under the auspices of the governor’s office], so what we understand is that we’ve been given an extra week, until Nov. 6, at which time we will reconvene and hope to have things worked out by then.”

DeBunda said horsemen and the tracks will pick up talks again Tuesday.

Separately, at the legislative level, the non-profit public government integrity website www.watchdog.org is reporting that a bill has been filed to draw an estimated $11.3 million from the gaming-revenue-generated Race Horse Development Fund to pay for drug testing.

The bill, which has passed the state Senate and is pending in the House, would also restructure how racing is regulated in the state. Its sponsor, Sen. Elder Vogel, projects that the changes would create a surplus of more than $27 million for the State Racing Fund by 2019-20.