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\tMadison Russ, Special to the Philadelphia Business Journal<\/p>\n
\tPennsylvania may soon need to hold their horses\u2014literally.
\n\tAuditor General Eugene DePasquale warned last week that Pennsylvania\u2019s billion-dollar horse racing industry is in jeopardy due to the diversion of funds and declining revenue. If not remedied, it could risk a shutdown.<\/p>\n
\tIn a report released on the State Racing Fund, the auditor general outlined how the Department of Agriculture has been over-billing the fund by $870,000 for the last three years to cover budget shortages. Additionally, it billed the fund nearly $5.2 million over four years for additional personnel costs that it could not document, the auditor general found.
\n\tOne of those charges consisted of more than $177,000 to a state fund for a \u201cSpecial Agriculture Advisor to the Governor,\u201d including a full year\u2019s salary of $101,264 between 2012 to 2013.<\/p>\n
\tAlthough agriculture officials initially contended that the advisor spent most of his time working with the Horse and Harness Race Commissions, auditors later found that the advisor worked on special projects unrelated to the horse racing industry assigned by the Secretary of Agriculture.<\/p>\n
\tOfficials later conceded the advisor did not work exclusively for the racing commissions.<\/p>\n
\tPennsylvania\u2019s horse racing industry generates $1.6 billion in annual economic activity and supports nearly 23,000 jobs.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe horse racing industry is one of Pennsylvania\u2019s largest agricultural industries, but it is in trouble because funds intended to provide necessary oversight and revitalize the industry are being diverted to plug budget holes,\u201d DePasquale said in a statement. \u201cBalancing the Department of Agriculture\u2019s overall budget with State Racing Fund monies is not an allowable use of the fund and represents an abuse of Agriculture\u2019s authority.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe State Racing Fund, which was created in 1981, is used to pay for the personnel and operating costs of the Horse and Harness Racing Commissions, Equine Laboratories, the PA Fair, and for some costs towards the Department of Revenue for collecting the racing taxes. The fund also collects revenue from wagering taxes, un-cashed tickets, license fees, breakage, admission taxes and other miscellaneous sources.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIf the State Racing Fund goes bankrupt, the racing industry would shut down,\u201d the general auditor said, while also noting that the fund pays for regulatory safety measures for jockeys and staffs equine laboratories that conduct drug testing on horses.<\/p>\n
\tAuditors also found that money towards the Race Horse Development Fund is being diverted to cover other state budget expenses.<\/p>\n
\tIn 2010, more than $212 million was diverted from the fund, including more than $185 million to the state\u2019s general fund budget, $5 million to the Farm Products Show Fund and $17.7 million to agriculture programs.<\/p>\n
\tThe Race Horse Development Fund was created in 2004 and provides pension benefits for horsemen as well as incentive awards to breeders.
\n\tEvery year, $1 billion is wagered on race track events by more than 3 million people but due to competition with casino gaming, wagering tax revenue for races has declined 24 percent over the four-year period.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe race horse industry is important to our economy and we must ensure that it remains viable and prosperous,\u201d DePasquale said.<\/p>\n
\tThe Pennsylvania Equine Coalition, a statewide group comprised of more than 10,000 horse owners, applauded the auditor general\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madison Russ, Special to the Philadelphia Business Journal Pennsylvania may soon need to hold their horses\u2014literally. Auditor General Eugene DePasquale warned last week that Pennsylvania\u2019s billion-dollar horse racing industry is in jeopardy due to the diversion of funds and declining…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}