The Western Regional OTB Board of Directors on Thursday morning, by unanimous vote, approved a contract offer to Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown to become the next CEO and president of the OTB.
Brown will receive a salary of $295,000 in the first year, with the possibility of incentive bonuses. The contract will have an annual renewal clause, said Board President Dennis Bassett.
Bassett declined to release copies of the 18-page contract to the press until Brown signs it.
Brown is expected to announce his future plans next week, a spokesman for the mayor's office said.
"We have a unique situation here at Batavia Downs where we have harness racings, we have a casino, we have gaming, we have a number of different avenues in which we endeavor to make sure that we do well," Bassett said when asked to defend the size of the salary. "I'm not so sure that other areas that are in this business have as diverse and as complex an operation as we do here in Batavia Downs, so we think that for what we are asking our new president and CEO to do, that he is being paid comparable."
Henry Wojtaszek, the outgoing CEO and president, makes $264,898.
The 65-year-old Brown became Buffalo's mayor in 2006. He served in the state Senate from 2001 to 2005. He was a member of the Buffalo Common Council from 1996 to 2001. He has a dual bachelor of arts degree in political science and journalism from Buffalo State College. He worked in sales for a year at Bristol-Myers before starting a legislative staff career.
After Thursday's meeting, Bassett reiterated previous statements that Brown was hired primarily because of his extensive legislative background and productive relationship with key powerbrokers in Albany.
"We hope that Mayor Brown's influence and his knowledge of the individuals who work in that environment will help us open doors that we haven't been able to open before," Bassett said.
The OTB is interested into expanding operations into other ventures, such as sports betting and online betting. Bassett has expressed concern that Wojtaszek, a Republican disliked, it seems, by at least some key Democrats, wouldn't be effective in lobbying on behalf of the OTB on those issues.
"The thing that is important for all thriving institutions is change," Bassett said. "Change is good, and change is inevitable, and the most important thing around change is how you manage to change, how you deal with the change. We think that we have done a thorough job to get where we are today, the success we had and what we need for tomorrow to continue our success. And I cannot say it enough that we are extremely fortunate to get an individual like Mayor Byron Brown to lead this organization after the job Henry Wojtaszek has done. I think we've just been extremely fortunate. And we look to continue to grow. We look to continue to venture into things that we have not ventured into before."
Batavia Downs is on pace for its third consecutive year of record revenue and record payouts to the 17 municipalities that are OTB's owners.
As for potential bonuses for Brown, Bassett indicated that the pending contract does not include specific language. The board will develop incentive criteria and the nature of the incentives.
Before Brown can sign the contract, the state's gaming commission must issue him a license to run a gaming operation. Wojtaszek's last day with the organization will be Dec. 31. Bassett said he expects Brown to be able to start his new job before then and enter into a period of training by Wojtaszek.
When the board agreed over the summer to buy out Wojtaszek's contract, they also voted to buy out the contracts of CFO Jackie Leach and VP of Operations William White.
Bassett said Brown, who has spent nearly all of his professional career as a public servant, is ready to step in and run Batavia Downs like a business. To that end, he expects whoever Brown hires to fill those vacancies to be based on business qualifications and not political affiliation.
"Brown expressed to us that he's taken over a position now that he's managing a corporate entity, and he's looking to make sure that we run this organization in a corporate way and not in a political way," Bassett said. "And that's a big 'a-ha,' because I've been on this board 14 years, and I can honestly say, as much as you (the press) may not believe me, the decisions that we've made in this room have never been political," Bassett said.
Bassett noted that for the majority of his tenure on the board, he's been a member of the minority party and only after voting rules were changed did he join the majority (weighted vote based on population). Bassett is a Democrat. Until the change in weighted voting, the large majority of the board were the Republican-run municipalities.
"I have never felt slighted. I have never felt disadvantaged. You know why? Because on this board, we make business decisions," Bassett said. "We make business decisions for 17 municipalities because they're interested in whether we are going to write them checks at the end of each month, and we continue to write them record-breaking checks each and every month, and that's what I'm most proud of."
Photo by Howard Owens.
