State comptroller critical of NYRA's planning

The New York state comptroller issued a report on Wednesday that was critical of the New York Racing Association’s long-term planning for capital-improvement projects, citing specifically the estimated overruns attached to the building of a simulcast parlor at Aqueduct.

The audit, conducted by the office of Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, said NYRA could improve its planning for long-term capital projects by putting in place more detailed tools. The report said a portion of the $2.3 million in overruns associated with the building of the simulcast parlor could have been avoided with better planning.

In response to the audit, NYRA said it disagreed with the report’s conclusions, stating that long-term planning by the association for its three racetracks is complicated by the need to engage local communities in the process and gain the approval of the NYRA Franchise Oversight Board, a state agency. NYRA also pointed out that the primary purpose of the comptroller’s audit was to ascertain whether NYRA had proper controls over the accounting of funds transferred from a casino adjacent to Aqueduct.

“The report confirms that this is the case,” NYRA said a statement. “We have adequate controls in place.”

The audit said that a prior audit done in 2007 also had taken issue with NYRA’s long-term planning for capital improvements. Shortly after the release of that audit, NYRA filed for bankruptcy and was reorganized after ceding the deeds of its tracks to the state. Since then, the Aqueduct casino has opened, resulting in approximately $100 million in subsidies each year, and control over the association’s board of trustees has been handed to the state under the direction of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“An organization that has recently emerged from bankruptcy protection needs to do a much better job of minding its finances and seeing to its most pressing capital needs,” DiNapoli said in a statement attached to the audit.