With attempts to reach agreement on reforms and new revenues for the state`s sagging horse racing industry apparently stalled, Gov. James Thompson issued a stern warning Wednesday that all interested parties must unite if a measure to help the industry is to pass the General Assembly this month.
”The brass ring is coming by one more time,” he told reporters in the Capitol rotunda. ”I think folks in the racing industry better start thinking of the greater good of the industry and less of their individual tracks and their individual good and their individual bargaining positions and get together. That includes everybody.”
Efforts to clean up the horse racing industry, and at the same time offer incentives to tracks, have been a major initiative in the spring session of the legislature.
But negotiators for various factions in the industry reportedly are split over measures requiring horses to be stabled in detention barns for up to five hours before a race, the licensing of parimutuel clerks, the awarding of racing dates and locations for modified off-track wagering parlors.
Also described as a ”very serious snag” in the negotiations is the level of tax incentives the legislature would grant to the racing industry, including the fire-damaged Arlington Park Race Track, and how lost tax revenues would be replaced in the state`s general revenue fund.
”It`s not so much squabbling as each of them trying to figure out exactly what they can get,” said one source familiar with the negotiations.
”The tracks have competing interests.”
Thompson also said he does not object to a measure pending in the legislature that would provide for a limited form of off-track betting. The measure, which likely will be sent to a joint House-Senate conference committee to be amended to include any racing agreement, would allow Cook County racetracks to operate two remote wagering facilities within a 35-mile radius of their tracks.
That is one element of an agreement being sought by track owners, and Thompson earlier had not recommended intertrack wagering as part of the racing package this year.
”It`s not the kind of off-track betting that has been suggested before,” the governor said. ”That`s still another step away. This limited step seems okay with me.”
House Republicans twice have refused to allow the GOP-sponsored intertrack wagering bill to be sent to a conference committee, saying there must be an agreement reached in the governor`s office before they will yield control of the measure.
”Once it goes into a conference committee, the bill will be totally controlled by the Democrats,” said Rep. Sam Vinson (R., Clinton), the point man on the racing issue for House Minority Leader Lee Daniels (R., Elmhurst). House Democrats have proposed a flat 4 percent parimutuel tax on wagering at the tracks, twice what Thompson has said is the minimum needed to aid the industry but still well below the current maximum tax of 7.75 percent.
Thompson said the reduced tax break did not bother him ”at the moment because the bill is going to a conference committee.”
The Democratic package, however, would make the tax break conditional on the issuance of all necessary building permits for the new racetrack in Lake County proposed by Richard Duchossois, the owner of Arlington Park Race Track which was destroyed by fire last July.
It also would give the tracks the state`s share of ”breakage,” the odd cents remaining when winnings are rounded down to the nearest 20 cents and allow trackowners to set admission and concession prices, as well as purses and stakes, without approval of the Illinois Racing Board.
”We`re a long way from the end of the session and you could figure out ways of dealing with these things well ahead of the scheduled adjournment,”
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Vinson said. ”I would anticipate that an agreement will be reached at some point.”
The legislature is scheduled to adjourn its spring session Monday.
In other legislative action Wednesday:
— The Senate approved an education funding package totaling more than $3 billion. Included in the education budget bill, which Sen. Arthur Berman (D., Chicago) said is 8.5 percent more than current allocations, are more than $40 million for the Chicago public schools and $3.5 million for the new Math and Science Academy, in Aurora.
Lower than expected state revenues have threatened the funding for the new academy and the $50 million the Chicago Board of Education needs to fund a 3 percent salary increase in the second year of a two-year contract with teachers.
— Thompson said he agreed with House Speaker Michael Madigan (D., Chicago) that insurance companies should not have to face rate regulation as part of a plan still being negotiated to make liability insurance more available and affordable.
— The Senate on a 53-1 vote sent to Thompson a bill to create the Home Repair Fraud Act, setting penalties for contractors who deceive homeowners on the cost or need for home repairs. The bill also creates a crime of aggravated home-repair fraud with heavier penalties for fraud against persons over age 60.
— The Senate voted 56-0 to approve a bill that would make it a crime for adults to rent a hotel or motel room for minors to consume alcoholic beverages. The bill goes to the governor`s desk.
— Two measures to combat sexual abuse of children were approved by the Senate and sent to Thompson. One bill would require two-time sex offenders who are released from prison to report their residences to local police. Another would direct the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to investigate suspected child sexual abuse by employees and professionals, such as teachers, who have frequent contact with children.
— The Senate sent to Thompson on a 47-0 vote legislation that would make it easier to prosecute cases where an unborn child is killed or injured in a nonabortion situation. The bill would allow prosecution for injury or death caused to any fetus rather than just a ”viable” fetus that could survive outside of the womb.
— The Senate gave final approval to an expanded ”tax increment financing” plan to allow communities to use a portion of state tax revenues for redevelopment projects. Under the plan sponsored by Senate President Philip Rock (D., Chicago), municipalities, which already can use property tax increases to pay off redevelopment bonds in blighted areas, would also be able to use state sales and utility taxes as a further impetus for economic growth.