Brown offered $295,000 to head OTB

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Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. Photo by WKBW.

This story was updated at 1:58 p.m.

Directors of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. today voted to offer Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown a $295,000 salary to be the agency’s new president and CEO.

OTB Chairman Dennis Bassett characterized the contract offered to Brown as an “annual” agreement with “incentives” to be negotiated in a second and third year. Bassett refused to say what those incentives are worth or provide any other details of the 18-page employment contract, calling the decision “my choice.”

Two attorneys versed in the state’s Freedom of Information Law told Investigative Post that the contract is a public record and should be released.

No start date for Brown was announced, although Bassett told reporters he expects Brown to be serving as CEO by the board’s next meeting on Oct. 23, pending approval of two licenses he will need from the state Gaming Commission.

The mayor’s office said Brown “will have an announcement about his future next week.”

Brown’s $295,000 salary would represent a big raise. He currently earns $178,518 as mayor. According to the Gaming Commission, Brown has applied for needed licenses. He will need one license to oversee OTB’s video lottery operation and a second license to oversee horse racing at Batavia Downs.

Should Brown accept the offer, he’ll be the highest paid OTB official in New York once the current Western Regional CEO, Henry Wojtaszek, leaves his post. CEOs at the state’s four other OTBs earn between $180,250 and $250,000 annually.

He’ll even make more than some private sector casino CEOs. The leader of Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack, for example, is said to make around $280,000.

Wojtaszek earns a salary of $299,000. The pay range for Brown was said to be between $275,000 and $350,000. Bassett on Thursday said the agency advertised a pay range of $280,000 to $320,000. 

OTB justified the $295,000 salary for Brown, Bassett said, after consulting with Rajat Shah, an attorney with Harris Beach who has experience with the gaming industry, including at Delaware North. He said the agency also consulted with the Burke Group, a consulting firm in Rochester.

Brown’s pay was not based on Wojtaszek’s, Bassett said, but rather on an expectation that he would help OTB make gains in Albany. Several state law changes would be needed for OTB to expand its gambling offerings, for example. 

“We think the relationships Mayor Brown has developed over the years and his time as a legislator and his relationships in Albany and in the governor’s office will help us to move forward with some of the things we would like to do in Batavia Downs,” Bassett said.

One lawmaker, however, criticized Brown’s salary on Thursday, calling it “wasteful spending.”

“As the City of Buffalo Mayor, Byron Brown manages an operation that is exponentially larger than OTB both in the size of its workforce and operating budget and yet is paid far less for this important and demanding work,” Assemblywoman Monica Wallace of Cheektowaga said in a statement. “The OTB CEO’s pay should be commensurate with their duties, not simply a continuation of the exorbitant pay that has been the norm under the outgoing CEO.”

Brown, 66, the city’s first Black mayor, has held the office since 2006. He cruised to reelection three times before suffering his first serious political setback in June 2021, when he lost the Democratic primary to challenger India Walton. He mounted a well-funded write-in campaign and won a record fifth term that fall.

Brown also served two terms as a state senator and represented the Masten District on the Common Council for six years.

Common Council President Christopher Scanlon will serve as acting mayor upon Brown’s resignation and continue in that capacity through the end of 2025. Voters will pick a new mayor in the 2025 election cycle — primary in June, general election in November — and the field of potential candidates is already crowded.

Wojtaszek will remain as president and CEO through December. Bassett said Thursday that Wojtaszek will train Brown once he starts. 

“Henry has really graciously offered to stay to bring Mayor Brown up to speed on the intricacies of this operation and the complexities of the job,” Bassett said.

When he does leave, Wojtaszek will take a $299,000 buyout with him, a provision of his contract that was renegotiated this summer. The buyout has been called illegal by two state lawmakers who have asked the state Attorney General and Inspector General to investigate. Wojtaszek on Thursday declined to comment on the lawmaker’s calls for investigations.

Two other OTB executives, Chief Financial Officer Jacquelyne Leach and VP of Administration William White, will depart with buyouts in the near future. Scott Kiedrowski, vice president of operations, will remain on board, Bassett said. Kiedrowski is currently accused in a federal lawsuit of sexually harassing OTB employees.

Directors and OTB officials did not immediately release other details of the contract for Brown, who is slated to leave City Hall for Batavia Downs in the coming weeks.

“We are not going to give the contract out because the mayor cannot sign the contract until he’s approved by the gaming board and that has not occurred,” Bassett said. “We gave you the salary and we think that’s the most important thing.”

Bassett and OTB attorney John Owens said the contract will be released under the Freedom of Information Law once it’s signed. Investigative Post has a pending request for the document.

Bassett first said he couldn’t release the contract until Brown obtained his gaming licenses. He then said it was his personal choice to withhold the document. He later said it would be up to Brown to release the contract.

Owens, the OTB attorney, offered a different explanation: “[The contract] is subject to the Freedom of Information Law and we’ll honor any such requests,” he said. “But we don’t have a contract now. There’s no signature on it.”

Bassett added: “Why don’t you give us an opportunity to close the loop, and [then] I wouldn’t see any reason why we wouldn’t give you the contract, the agreement, after Mayor Brown has signed it. Can we leave it at that?”

Attorneys told Investigative Post on Thursday there was no reason why OTB couldn’t release a copy of the contract immediately.

“Just because it’s awaiting a signature, that’s not a basis for withholding it from the public,” attorney Paul Wolf, who heads the New York Coalition for Open Government. “There should be no reason to not release it to the public.”

Karim Abdulla, an attorney with Finnerty Osterreicher & Abdulla, said contracts can be withheld by a public agency only if doing so would impair its bargaining position, such as with a contract for work that’s gone out to bid.

“If we are dealing with a ‘done deal’ — a contract that has been agreed to by both sides and is just awaiting signature — it is hard to see how the agency’s bargaining position would be hampered by disclosure,” Abdulla said.

Thursday’s vote came after more than two hours of closed-door discussions by the OTB board’s personnel committee on Wednesday. Ahead of the personnel committee vote, some board members were said to favor pay above $300,000 for Brown, arguing that such salaries were similar to the private sector.

Other board members, though, favored pay closer to $275,000 given his wealth of government experience but limited gaming experience. Directors have said they were looking for a leader who could help the agency lobby in Albany.

The OTB  board on Thursday also voted to make the job of president and CEO separate from general counsel. Wojtaszek, who started as OTB’s general counsel in 2010, never fully gave up those duties when he assumed the CEO role in 2016. 

In addition to Owens, the part-time OTB board attorney, Investigative Post reported last year that OTB regularly spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on lawyers and lobbying efforts.

J. Dale Shoemaker