A call for ‘top to bottom’ audit of OTB

• Share on
• 
• 
• 
• 

Three good-government groups have called on State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli to conduct a “top-to-bottom” audit of Western Regional Off-Track Betting.

With a leadership transition newly complete, the groups — Reinvent Albany, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters — say all of OTB’s activities should be audited. They include OTB’s “revenue and expenses, procurement, investment, management systems, governance, and public transparency and accountability,” the groups said.

In a letter sent Monday, the groups said “golden parachutes for departing executives, nepotistic hiring, and an outsize salary for the incoming CEO” were of particular concern.

The “golden parachute” refers to $299,000 outgoing CEO Henry Wojtaszek is due upon his departure at the end of the year. Assemblywoman Monica Wallace and state Sen. Sean Ryan have previously called the planned payment illegal and have asked the New York Attorney General as well as the Inspector General to investigate. It’s not clear if either agency has.

The group’s charge of “nepotistic hiring” refers to OTB’s employment of Wojtaszek’s son. Incoming CEO Byron Brown said last week he had no plans to fire Jack Wojtaszek from his $52,000 per year customer relations job.

In addition, Brown was hired in October at a salary of $295,000, with raises taking the total to $315,000 by the end of his three-year contract. The groups noted that Brown earns a high salary when compared with the size of OTB’s operating budget. The CEO of the New York Power Authority, for example, makes $60,000 more than Brown but manages a budget that’s 71 times larger than OTB. 

Brown’s salary also makes him the highest-paid OTB executive in New York.

“We are asking your office to take a top-to-bottom look at Western OTB that answers fundamental questions about the public benefit provided by Western OTB, the board’s fulfillment of its fiduciary duty and independence from partisan political considerations that directly affect hiring, procurement, and spending decisions,” the groups wrote DiNapoli.

The groups further questioned whether OTB continues to provide a public benefit. By law, 49 percent of OTB revenues go to state coffers and another 15 to 20 percent are distributed to the 15 counties and two cities that own the agency. OTB last week reported that increased expenses this year have reduced payments to the municipalities by $2.6 million.

“The public should know if the economics of the authority make sense,” the groups wrote.

Jennifer Freeman, a spokesperson for DiNapoli, said the comptroller’s office has “received the request and [is] reviewing it.” She said no decision has been made whether to conduct the audit.

DiNapoli’s office last audited OTB in 2021. In September of that year, the comptroller released back-to-back reports dinging OTB for distributing Buffalo Bills and Sabres tickets to employees and well-connected individuals, and for Wojtaszek’s use of an agency car and cell phone. Following the audits, OTB adopted new rules regarding ticket distribution and Wojtaszek gave up his use of the car and cell phone.

Democrats in Albany used the mounting pressure on OTB to pass legislation in 2023 that fired the board of directors and instituted a system of weighted voting. That change, spearheaded by then-state Sen. Tim Kennedy, shifted control of the agency from rural Western New York Republicans to the region’s urban Democrats.

Since then, the new Democrat-controlled board has granted Wojtaszek and his top executives raises, Wojtaszek a $299,000 buyout and hired Brown, chief of staff Steven Casey and communications director Michael DeGeorge for a collective cost of $595,000. 

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, who controls the county’s appointment to the OTB board, sharply criticized the hiring of Casey, who previously owned a consulting firm that pleaded guilty to a felony wire fraud charge.

In a statement Monday, DeGeorge suggested that a comptroller’s audit was not necessary but that the agency would comply if DiNapoli began one. OTB, DeGeorge said, undergoes a financial audit each year from contractor The Bonadio Group. He noted that the firm’s most recent audit, from 2023, came back “clean.” 

The audit sought by Reinvent Albany and the other groups goes well beyond a standard financial audit, however.

DeGeorge noted that OTB employs an in-house auditor and that the comptroller’s past probes resulted in positive changes.

“The new WROTBC administration remains committed to collaborating with both external auditors and the internal audit team to ensure effective, transparent financial controls and to maintain clean audit outcomes,” DeGeorge said.

J. Dale Shoemaker