NYRA’s Spending ‘Excessive’

As it continued to lose millions of dollars a year, the New York Racing Association spent more than $1 million on employees and vendors for “inappropriate, unsupported and excessive” expenses, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi said Tuesday.

The expenses, including country club memberships and golf outings for the wives of the association’s executives, were improperly deducted from NYRA’s tax returns, Hevesi said. NYRA operates New York’s three premier tracks: Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga.

The travel and entertainment practices cut by more than $500,000 the amount NYRA should have paid the state to operate the race tracks from 2002 to 2004. NYRA also understated its tax liabilities, Hevesi said.

The information arose as part of a 2003 court-imposed deferred prosecution agreement between the association, the state and federal prosecutors, he said.

NYRA has been under the eye of monitors appointed by both state and federal authorities and has been steadily losing money: $20 million in 2003, $21.7 million in 2002 and $12 million in 2001, according to financial records.

“Past NYRA executives operated in a culture that routinely violated laws and regulations, shortchanging the state and taxpayers over and over again,” Hevesi said.

The expenses included $42,672 for country club memberships for two top executives from 2002 to 2004 and $1,190 to a country club for various expenses incurred in the name of an NYRA executive, including $802 for “golfing wives.”

Also, $953,000 in travel and entertainment expenses weren’t supported by receipts or other necessary information.

“I can’t begin to apologize or make excuses because I agree with the comptroller,” said Charles Hayward, the new president of NYRA. “We’re changing practices and we’re changing the culture.”

He said Tuesday’s report would soon be followed by other critical studies of NYRA’s past management.