OTB board urged to cancel $500,000 in 'sweetheart' payments to outgoing executives

The elected officials blasted the approved payouts to outgoing President and CEO Henry Wojtaszek and two other executives as illegal and financially imprudent.

“There’s simply no way that the board members can justify a half million dollars in sweetheart deals for the benefit of the public,” Assembly Member Monica Wallace, D-Lancaster, said at a news conference outside the OTB location on Clinton Street in Cheektowaga. “These packages should be rescinded immediately.”

Joining Wallace at the news conference were State Sen. Sean Ryan, D-Buffalo, and Erie County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick.

Wallace said the buyout deals violate the state’s Severance Pay Limitation Act, which limits severance for at-will employees of New York public authorities to no more than three months’ pay.

Board Chairman Dennis Bassett defended the payouts in an interview with The Buffalo News earlier this month and said the corporation’s lawyers had assured board members the payments are legal.

"From the OTB board of directors' point of view, this matter is decided and closed. We have now shifted toward finding our new leadership team," Bassett said in a statement issued after the news conference.

The Western Region OTB oversees numerous off-track betting sites, as well as Batavia Downs, a major moneymaker with a video gaming casino floor, hotel and live horse harness racing.

The public corporation serves a 15-county region from its base in Batavia. The revenue it collects supports its operations, with hundreds of thousands of dollars each year also distributed to county governments and the cities of Buffalo and Rochester.

It has done well financially the past two years, with board members repeatedly referring to growing revenues in their praise of Wojtaszek and the rest of the corporation’s leadership.

The WROTB also has been the focus of scrutiny from elected leaders and government watchdogs. They object to what they call the agency’s lack of transparency and to the pay and perks – such as health insurance and Bills and Sabres tickets – given to politically connected board appointees over the years.

Republican and Conservative party leaders have populated the organization’s board and upper administrative ranks and firms tied to them have received millions of dollars in fees, according to lawsuits and investigations.

“The entire organization reeks of cronyism and corruption,” Ryan said Friday.

Last year, in response to criticism and calls for reform, then-State Sen. Tim Kennedy, a Buffalo Democrat, sponsored language included in the final state budget agreement that terminated the appointment of every WROTB commissioner.

It also strengthened the voting weight of more heavily populated cities and counties and diminished the voting strength of smaller, rural counties.

“I thought we had gotten past this,” Hardwick said. “I thought there was going to be a culture change.”

A prior board extended the employment agreements to its top administrators.

The buyouts approved by the current board supersede the prior contract extensions, which were not set to expire until the end of 2026.

Wojtaszek, the former Niagara County GOP chairman who has served 15 years with the WROTB, will leave at the end of the year and afterward will receive a full year’s salary of about $299,000.

OTB Comptroller Jacquelyne Leach, who has served for 35 years, will receive a buyout of half of her $244,000 salary. Administration Vice President William White, who has been with the organization for 23 years, will be paid half his annual salary of $175,000 as a buyout.

The board has launched a national search for a successor to Wojtaszek.

"We look forward to working with our partners in government," Bassett said in the statement. "We hope that sometime very soon we can move past issues that have already been addressed. It’s not about politics. It’s about results, and that’s what our team has consistently delivered for years."

Wallace said she believes whoever is hired should be paid far less than Wojtaszek. Hardwick pointed out Wojtaszek earns more than Gov. Kathy Hochul and is paid twice the salary that Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz receives.

The three executives received a pair of “unnecessary” pay raises over the past year, Wallace said, apparently to “pad their salaries, and also their pensions, as much as possible.”

The board voted 16-1 to approve the buyouts to the three executives. The only no vote came from Poloncarz’s appointee to the board, Timothy Callan, the deputy Erie County comptroller.

“It’s an outrage,” Ryan said. “The OTB thinks no one can touch them.”

Wallace, Ryan and Hardwick urged the board to reconsider its actions.

The $500,000 is money that, if it isn’t handed out to the three executives, could go back to the 15 counties and two cities that receive revenue from the OTB, Hardwick said.

“It is time for the gravy-train, country-club culture to end,” he said.

Wallace said she has not yet reached out to the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate the payments. She declined to say what her next step would be if board members stick to their position that they have done nothing wrong and refuse to reverse the payments.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Wallace said.

She also insisted that, as one of the authors of the Severance Pay Limitation Act, it “certainly was intended” to apply to all public benefit corporations in the state – including the Western Region OTB.

Ryan alluded to the likelihood that a legal dispute such as this one would end up in court, creating further expense for all sides.

Terrence Connors, the OTB's outside counsel, said it's clear the severance pay act doesn't apply to the corporation because the OTB was organized under a different section of the state's consolidated laws.

"While I have great respect for Assemblymember Wallace, our review suggests she was wrong and cited an inapplicable statute," Connors said in the OTB statement. "Nevertheless, OTB will cooperate with any agency that wishes to review the severance payments.”