OTB hires two Brown lieutenants from City Hall

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Byron Brown answers questions from reporters at Thursday’s OTB meeting. Photo by Garrett Looker.

Steven Casey, a longtime aide to Byron Brown and a political operative whose consulting firm pleaded guilty to felony charges in 2021, was hired Thursday as the former mayor’s right-hand man at the Western Regional Off-Track Betting.

The OTB board voted to hire Casey for one year as chief administrative officer and chief of staff under Brown, OTB’s new president and CEO. Casey will be paid $190,000. OTB will retain Scott Kiedrowski, OTB’s current No. 2, who is named in a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and wage theft. His salary was $172,668; the board gave him a raise to $190,000.

Casey made $102,500 in his previous job as chief marketing manager at Big Dog Strategies, a GOP-aligned political consulting firm, according to Casey’s license application to the state Gaming Commission.

The board also voted to hire longtime city spokesperson Michael DeGeorge as OTB’s director of communications, for one year. He will earn $130,000. He is stepping down from his $124,676 city job at the end of this month.

Speaking of Casey and DeGeorge, Brown said: “I think they will do excellent jobs in the capacities that they’ve been hired for. I am very comfortable with their hires.”

Casey, as deputy mayor, tightly controlled access to Brown and often took commissioners to task in public and private. His brusk demeanor made him unpopular in City Hall during his tenure. 

DeGeorge often clashed with reporters and has frequently refused to respond to their inquiries. He oversaw a five-person staff, much larger than the communications operation at OTB.

The hirings were not without controversy.

OTB Board member Timothy Callan. Photo by Garrett Looker.

Erie County representative Timothy Callan, whose vote carries the most weight on the board, voted against the resolutions changing job duties and hiring Casey and DeGeorge. He was the only dissenting vote cast by board members.

“With him barely in the job for a week, one of the first things he’s doing is putting in Steve Casey to essentially be the No. 2 person at this corporation,” Callan told reporters after Thursday’s meeting. “And I have a problem with that. I have a very severe problem with that. I don’t think Steve Casey should have any job at this corporation.”

Callan said he felt DeGeorge’s hiring was unnecessary.

“I don’t think we need a director of communications title, and certainly not paying $130,000 a year,” he said.

Prior to his promotion Thursday, Casey began working at OTB in September, in a part-time customer relations specialist position that paid about $50,000 a year, according to the state comptroller’s office and Casey’s gaming license application.  Brown insisted Thursday that he had no prior knowledge that Casey had sought a job at OTB. 

By Brown’s telling, Casey applied for a state gaming license and a job at OTB without his knowledge. Casey, however, listed Brown as a reference on his gaming license application. Brown said he did not know that and was not contacted by the Gaming Commission.

“The Gaming Commission raised no concerns with me,” Brown said. “I did not know he applied for a gaming license. I did not know he was hired at Batavia Downs prior to me applying for the position.”

Callan said he didn’t buy Brown’s explanation.

“Mr. Brown claiming that he had nothing to do with Mr. Casey getting a job here — it beggars disbelief,” Callan told reporters. “That doesn’t seem plausible.”

Casey managed Brown’s first two mayoral campaigns and served as deputy mayor from 2006 to 2014. Before following him to City Hall, Casey was a member of Brown’s state Senate staff. The two also worked together in the mid 1990s for then Erie County Executive Dennis Gorski. 

He left City Hall to lead an ultimately fruitless effort to redevelop the former Seneca Mall property. 

Casey then went to work in 2018 for Big Dog Strategies. The firm, headed by Chris Grant, a onetime aide to Chris Collins when he served as Erie County executive and later U.S. Congressman, is known for its hard-ball tactics. Former Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw is employed by the firm, whose past clients include George Santos, who was expelled from Congress last December.  

Casey was also sole owner of LSA Strategies from 2012 until the political consulting firm dissolved in 2022. In 2021, the company pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud — a felony. Prosecutors said Casey’s company conspired with a direct mail firm to over-bill the 2012 campaign of state Senate candidate Chuck Swanick, with Casey keeping the difference between actual charges and inflated invoices presented to Swanick’s campaign.

The company, solely owned by Casey according to the plea agreement, had to pay $8,283.59 in restitution to Swanick, $400 in court costs and a $69 fine. 

Asked earlier this week about LSA’s conviction, Brown said: “When you look at Steve Casey’s actual record, he has no record,” referring to the fact that Casey’s company, not Casey, was charged and convicted. “So there is no prohibition to him being able to work here as I understand it.”

Buffalo representative Crystal Rodriquez-Dabney, whose vote carries the third-most weight, abstained from voting on Casey and DeGeorge. Rodriquez-Dabney, who previously served in the Brown administration, including deputy mayor, said she did so because she has prior relationships with both Casey and DeGeorge.

Current marketing director Ryan Hasenauer, whose duties have included spokesperson for the agency, will become OTB’s vice president of business development. The board on Thursday gave Hasenauer a raise from $125,000 to $130,000, Callan said. Hasenauer said Thursday he didn’t know if he and DeGeorge would work alongside each other or if one of them would report to the other.

Human resources director Danielle Fleming will become the vice president of human resources. Her pay was raised from $89,000 to $110,000.

OTB recently hired Bernadette Taylor, Brown’s executive assistant in City Hall, to a similar position at OTB. The board on Thursday approved a raise for Wojtaszek’s secretary, Pauline Andrews, from $76,000 to $95,000.

“My back of the envelope calculations, just on salaries alone, the personnel adjustments the board approved today will cost $253,000 in new salary expense, not including fringe benefits,” said Callan, the deputy Erie County comptroller. “What we did today was provide pay upgrades for four existing employees in the corporation or management employees, and then for three employees that Mr. Browns is bringing with him …. Mr. DeGeorge and Mr. Casey are being hired into newly created jobs that didn’t previously exist.”

Brown said he felt comfortable keeping Kiedrowski on board, who is named in a federal lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and wage theft.

“I’ve had the opportunity to review that matter with attorneys for the organization,” Brown said. “I feel comfortable that that matter was investigated by the board prior to my hiring, and the board made the determination that that claim was unfounded.”

Brown referred to a report filed in the case earlier this year that concluded Kiedrowski did not violate any laws. That report was completed by attorneys hired by OTB.

In a statement, an attorney representing the plaintiffs said the report was “self-serving” and done only after they made clear they intended to sue, “not when workers made complaints years ago.”

“While we do not comment on pending litigation, plaintiffs are confident the truth of Batavia Downs’s culture of fear and harassment will be revealed when all evidence is presented in a court of law,” said attorney Michael Dolce.

In May 2023, then-state Sen. Tim Kennedy won language in the state budget that fired OTB’s board of directors and introduced weighted voting. The move effectively threw control of the organization, long run by Republican appointees, to Democrats. Representatives from Buffalo, Rochester and Erie and Monroe counties, the most populous municipalities in OTB’s jurisdiction and both controlled by Democrats, now hold a majority of board votes.

Brown will be paid $295,000 in his first year, $305,000 in his second year and $315,000 in his third. He’ll also earn $800 per month for car expenses and could net an additional $1,500 annually if he doesn’t enroll in OTB’s health insurance program.

Outgoing CEO Henry Wojtaszek, an attorney by trade, has said he will return to private practice legal work once he departs at the end of the year. He’ll leave with a year’s pay, nearly $300,000, and the opportunity for lifetime health insurance from the agency. There is speculation in political circles that he is interested in running for mayor of North Tonawanda next year. 

Western Regional OTB was created by state lawmakers in 1973 to curb the black market in bookmaking and provide revenues to local governments. It is owned by 15 counties in Western and Central New York, plus the cities of Buffalo and Rochester. It operates betting parlors, betting kiosks in restaurants and bars, and a casino and harness racing track at Batavia Downs, which also includes a hotel and restaurant. OTB shares its profits with the state and the 17 municipal governments that own it.

OTB has been the subject of criticism and investigations for much of Wojtaszek’s tenure.

Controversies include:

• The use of tickets to sporting events and concerts by OTB executives and board members.
• Part-time board members receiving gold-plated health insurance benefits, something the state attorney general and comptroller have said is not allowed.
• An FBI investigation into the awarding of contracts to politically connected vendors.
• Wojtaszek’s failure to reimburse OTB for personal use of a car and cell phone paid for by the agency — perks he later gave up.
• The granting of employment contracts to Wojtaszek and 17 other executives, who had been at-will employees until reforms enacted by the state Legislature posed a threat to Wojtaszek’s job security.
• Lucrative buyouts approved for Wojtaszek and two senior managers, which state lawmakers consider illegal.

Wojtaszek will share duties with Brown through the end of the year, but Buffalo’s former mayor appears to be in charge.

J. Dale Shoemaker