By Mike Kane
New York Racing Association President and CEO Chris Kay said Friday that he will complete a report on the re-privatization of NYRA by the April deadline.
Legislation passed in 2012 that permitted New York State to take control of NYRA called for the beleagured association to be run by the NYRA Re-Organization Board for three years and be returned to private control by October 2015. A provision of the legislation said that NYRA officials should present the board with document in April 2015 with a plan for the move back to the private sector.
Although New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has included a provision in his current budget that would allow the state to run NYRA for another year, Kay said he will have his report ready on time next month. NYRA will hold a board meeting in late March and another in April.
Speaking at a press conference in Saratoga Springs on the economic impact of Saratoga Race Course, Kay said he has been consistent in his comments at board meetings since being hired as NYRA's top executive.
“I've said three things, we want to enhance the guest experience, we want to improve the quality of racing and we want to have a strong reorganization plan to present to the Legislature,” he said. “The date is sometime in the middle of April. It is all but done. I am literally doing my last fact check and grammar check on Saturday. It is about a 65-page document.”
Kay said his report is broken into several sections.
“A component of it is a history of what has transpired in the last couple of years and then how to address corporate governance going forward,” he said, “and certain recommendations as to how we might change certain laws so that NYRA could be even stronger in the future and help provide the kind of economic impact that we have seen here, as well as a three-year business plan that comprises 2014, 2015 and 2016.”
Kay noted NYRA finished with an operating budget surplus in 2014–excluding commissions from the video lottery terminal casino at Aqueduct–ending 13 consecutive years of operating deficits.
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