HISA posts $81 million budget, mostly for medication regulation

With about three-fourths of its expenses dedicated to enforcing medication rules, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority published a proposed budget of nearly $81 million for 2024 in what would be its first full calendar year maximizing its regulatory muscle.

The six-page snapshot was posted without much fanfare on the HISA website last week. A seven-day, public-comment window closed Thursday afternoon.

“Set forth below is the authority’s proposed 2024 budget,” a notice on the website said. “If you would like to submit comments to the authority on any aspect of the planned 2024 budget, please email no later than 5 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Aug. 24. The authority’s proposed budget takes effect only if approved by the Federal Trade Commission.”

The exact outlay would be $80,967,416, up from $66,490,436 in 2023, up 22 percent.

The Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit, the enforcer of HISA rules, accounts for nearly $39 million or about half the new budget. The actual dollars would go up 13 percent from this year’s $34 million. However, since HIWU did not get its ultimate green light until May, year-to-year comparisons are skewed.

Lab testing, another part of enforcement that was delayed until spring this year, accounts for 26 percent of the new budget. The actual dollars to be spent would rise 27 percent to $21.2 million.

Legal expenses for general purposes and for lawsuits are penciled in to nearly double to about $3.6 million. HISA has been defending its constitutionality in five active lawsuits brought by state authorities and horsemen’s groups in the past two years.

Professional services would go up 56 percent to $9.5 million, or about 12 percent of the total budget. They are described as “vendors and part-time employees that support the racetrack safety program,” “estimated cost for adjudication of cases” and “vendor companies that build and maintain technology systems (and) portals that facilitate program reporting and monitoring.”

Salaries would rise 18 percent from $3.4 million to $4.1 million. A breakdown on head count and who would make how much was not posted. A separate document filed with the Internal Revenue Service showed CEO Lisa Lazarus was paid $442,307 for the 10 1/2 months she was on the 2022 payroll. Consultant Hank Zeitlin, who served as interim CEO before Lazarus was appointed, was paid $314,827 that year.

On its own, mostly through the collection of fines and fees, HISA expects to generate $3.6 million in revenue, about 4 percent of the money it would spend. The rest would come from what states pay to be under HISA rule. That assessment would be as high as $78 million or as low as nearly $60 million. The other $18 million would come in the form of a credit from states that step up to perform certain duties such as drug testing that was established before HISA came along.

In a news release Aug. 9, HISA signaled it would be sharing its proposed budget but did not say at the time when it would be posted.