As lawmakers barrel down the home stretch of this year's budget negotiations, some are eyeing a horse-racing fund to help reach the finish line.
Raiding some or all of the $250 million Race Horse Development Fund to support the $32 billion spending plan budget the Senate and House approved on Friday has put those in the state's equine industry on edge.
It would put 23,000 people's jobs who work at at risk. And say the $4 billion in economic benefits the equine industry with all of its ancillary benefactors brings to Pennsylvania would evaporate if the fund was transferred to pay for the state's general fund budget.
"If they take the entire fund, racing is over in Pennsylvania," said Todd Mostoeller , executive director of the Pennsylvania Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, which represents 3,500 horsemen at Penn National Race Course in Grantville and Presque Isle Downs race track in Erie.
The fund, which is fueled by some of the money from slots play at the state's 12 casinos, was created in 2004 to salvage Pennsylvania's horse racing industry. It has come to be seen as its lifeblood. But over time it has come to be seen as a misuse of public funds.
"The Race Horse Development Fund should be at the top of the list of ways to bring the budget into balance," said Nathan Benefield, vice president of the conservative-leaning Commonwealth Foundation. "Before asking working families to pay one penny more in higher taxes, lawmakers should prioritize every dollar we spend now. In no way, shape, or form should subsidizing horse racing be a priority for state government."
House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana County, confirmed on Friday tranfering money from the race horse fund is one of several revenue enhancement ideas under consideration.
"It's just as feasible as anything else right now," Reed said. However, he added that there are members of his caucus on all sides of that idea. "It's one of the issues we're going to work through," he said.
His spokesman Steve Miskin said afterward he has not heard anyone call for transferring all the money out of that fund.
Mostoeller warned that racing would immediately cease at Penn National if that would happen. However, Fred Lipkin, Penn National's vice president of marketing and public relations, wouldn't comment on what the ramifications would be if some or all of the race horse fund was diverted to fund the budget.
"It's a very fluid situation for us to comment on at this time," Lipkin said. "We know there are ongoing negotiations and we really don't have any kind of comment until there's a concrete proposal on the table."
Mostoeller said losing that money would cost 120 race track employees and 700 to 800 horse trainers and groomsmen their jobs at Penn National alone. Along with it, he said 135 of his association's members eligible for health insurance and their dependents would lose their coverage.
He is infuriated that the Legislature would consider "destroying an industry" that it built up by creating this fund, which lured those in the horse racing business to make hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investments here in the commonwealth. Even the notion of a one-year transfer of the funds will be damaging, Mostoeller said.
He asks lawmakers who suggests that should put themselves in the shoes of a someone who invested their hundreds of thousands of dollars in their business and being told they can't race for a year because the Legislature needed the money that would pay their purses.
"What are you going to do? Are you going to stick around and say, 'oh , it's just for a year. I'll trust them'? There's no way. You're out of here. You're going to Maryland. You're going to New Jersey. You're going to New York and those horses are going with you," he said. "There needs to be trust by a business that you are going to have stability and Pennsylvania has been the ultimate example of instability. They're gone."