Texas agency funded days after historical racing rules repealed

One week after state racing officials repealed controversial rules allowing historical racing — a controversial new way to gamble at horse tracks — their agency received full funding for the biennium.

This is the latest development in a nearly two-year feud over historical racing between the commission and some Republican lawmakers who believed that the machines were an effort to expand gambling in Texas and who were ready to stop funding the agency.

Historical, or instant, racing, involves replaying past horse races races on devices with sounds and symbols similar to slot machines.

Commissioners have supported allowing historical racing machines at Texas tracks since approving rules to allow that in 2014, but without state funding the agency would shut down, and horse tracks in Texas including Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie would have to stop all racing.

Texas tracks shut down briefly last year because of this funding squabble.

Agency funding

The commission, funded by the industry it regulates, collects millions a year in fees paid by racetracks and license holders. That money is turned over to the state, which allocates it back to the commission.

Last year, state budget writers put a special “rider” in the budget giving the Legislative Budget Board — an agency on which state budget writers and top state officials serve — the sole decision on whether to allocate funding for salaries and other such services at the Racing Commission.

The board approved funding through the end of this month, but officials indicated they wouldn’t free up more money “until the agency repeals its rules allowing … Historical Racing,” according to a lawsuit in the case.

After taking several votes to keep the rules in place, the Texas Racing Commission last week repealed the rules.

On Thursday, the Legislative Budget Board authorized full funding for the agency, which lasts until Aug. 31, 2017.

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 3:28 PM with the headline "Texas agency funded days after historical racing rules repealed."