The Western Regional Off-Track Betting Board of Directors has rescheduled its special meeting for “a discussion and review for the position of President” for Sept. 5, according to a notice posted on the board’s website.
The meeting was originally scheduled for this Thursday, but the board of directors cancelled it on Tuesday.
Months of reports have suggested that Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown is reportedly seeking the public benefit corporation’s top job.
Mike DeGeorge, a spokesperson for Brown, hasn’t responded to a request for comment from WBFO.
Brown’s fifth term as mayor ends on Dec. 31, 2025.
If Brown were to step down, Buffalo Common Council President Chris Scanlon, a close ally of Brown’s who became Common Council president in January, would become mayor. And because the State Board of Elections’ Aug. 5 deadline to put any newly vacant seats on November’s ballot has passed, Scanlon would serve out the remainder of Brown’s term.
Whoever takes the public benefit corporation’s top job will replace outgoing WROTB President and CEO Henry Wojtaszek, who served in that role for 15 years. Wojtaszek and two other former WROTB executives made headlines when they accepted “golden parachute buyouts” collectively worth more than $500,000 of public money.
The board approved those buyouts by a vote of 15-1, according to The Daily News, with Erie County’s Timothy Callan voting no. The resolution was not available in minutes posted to the WROTB’s website.
State Sen. Sean Ryan and Assemblymember Monica Wallace have called on the board of directors to rescind the buyouts and, more recently, have asked the New York State Inspector General and Attorney General to investigate the buyouts. The lawmakers allege that the buyouts violate the Severance Pay Limitation Act, which limits severance packages for at-will employees at public-benefit corporations — like Wojtaszek, one of the highest paid public employees in the state — to a quarter of their annual salary. The act was passed in 2019 after similar buyouts at the Erie County Water Authority.
Western Regional OTB operates Batavia Downs and betting parlors across 15 New York counties, including all eight counties in Western New York. The profits from those operations are meant to be given to municipal and county governments in the region. The buyouts exceed the entire revenue share provided to 12 of the WROTB’s 15 counties in 2022, according to Ryan and Wallace.