The Legislature needs to decide if horse breeders and prizes for the dying sport of horse racing are more important than safe public transit, or early childhood education, or daycare.
Last month, I posted about our victory in stopping a proposed track in Sturbridge, Mass. But with millions in state gifts still available, the racing people are sure to keep trying. Hence the need for continued vigilance. This is why I appreciate the following column by former Boston mayoral candidate Bill Walczak in the Dorchester Reporter:
Politics is about choices. I remember my mother telling me to tell
whoever was calling on our phone that she wasn’t home, saying later
that it wasn’t a lie because she wasn’t home for that person. When
government officials tell us that they don’t have money for
maintenance of the MBTA, or funding K-1 or K-0 classes, or universal
daycare, or all the other things that we’re told we cannot have,
they’re not telling us there isn’t money; they’re telling us there
isn’t any money for those things that matter to us.
In my nearly 50 years living in our city and state, I have lamented
that maintenance of infrastructure is not one of our Commonwealth’s
strong suits. I’ve seen parks, roads, bridges, and the MBTA re-built
only to have to wait until they have decayed and need major
renovation before they are fixed again. Next time you’re on the T,
take a look at JFK/UMass station with its spalling bricks, rusted
beams, and chipping paint. A couple of months ago, a man fell to his
death by falling through a rusted-out stairway that connected to
that station.
It’s not just JFK/UMass station. Our trains are derailing, our
escalators are malfunctioning, and, despite the fact that Savin
Hill, Fields Corner, Shawmut, and Ashmont stations were re-built
just 10-to-15 years ago, these stations are decaying structurally
and need work urgently. The state clearly does not allocate enough
money to keep our stations and trains safe and well maintained.
Where are we going to get the money? How about horses? Welcome to
the Race Horse Development Fund.
When the state’s gambling bill passed in 2011, during the Great
Recession, the goal of the legislation was to direct money into
cities and towns. And horses. Horse racing is a major beneficiary of
the gambling legislation. Why?
Speakers of the Massachusetts House of Representatives have
typically been very powerful. Horse racing became a beneficiary of
the gambling legislation because then Speaker Bob DeLeo wanted to
protect the 674 jobs at horse racing tracks such as Suffolk Downs,
located in DeLeo’s district, and, as it happened, where his father
worked for fifty years.
The legislation requires a portion of the revenue generated from
gambling at the two casinos and the slots parlor to be allocated to
the Race Horse Development Fund, which, in turn, distributes it to
“thoroughbred and standardbred racing facilities to support the
thoroughbred and standardbred horse racing industries.”
The result has been a windfall of cash for horse racing. Since money
started accumulating from gambling in the permitted casinos and
slots parlor in 2015, $103,510,332.14 has been allocated to the
Fund, of which $82,879,436.44 has been provided to support horse
racing, divided up as follows: $66,303,549, or about 80 percent, for
purses, i.e., prize money, $13,260,710, or 16 percent, to “breeder
organizations,” which is also mainly for purses, and $3,315,177, or
about 4 percent, to health and pension benefits for “horsemen.”
It was on July 30, 2019, that the very last horse galloped across
the finish line at the Suffolk Downs thoroughbred horse racing
track, marking the end of its 84 years in operation. The money that
was slated for Suffolk Downs since it shut down – $20,630,895.70 –
remains unspent in the fund because there are no other thoroughbred
horse racing tracks in Massachusetts. In fact, there is only one
horseracing track left in Massachusetts, at the Plainridge Park
slots parlor, and it is a standardbred facility.
The Legislature needs to decide if horse breeders and prizes for the
dying sport of horse racing are more important than safe public
transit, or early childhood education, or daycare. Eliminating the
Race Horse Development Fund and reallocating these dollars to more
pressing needs in public transit, or early education, or community
college internships would give a permanent funding source to these
needed services and programs. Just the $20 million that is in an
account designated in part for thoroughbred racing, which
Massachusetts does not have, would go a long way in fixing the
MBTA’s crumbling stations.
If you’d rather they redirect these dollars to more pressing
priorities, tell your representatives and senators.
Hear, hear, Mr. Walczak. Thank you.