Gaming board chair defends hiring process
HARRISBURG – The chairman of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board took personally the criticisms over his agency’s hiring process, bristling in saying “I resent having our ethics impugned.” Chairman Tad Decker appeared before House and Senate panels Tuesday for questioning over the start of gambling operations and to comment on upcoming legislative fixes to the state’s two-year-old gambling law.
House lawmakers, in particular, wanted to know about the board’s decision this spring to forgo using the Pennsylvania State Police to do background investigations to screen gaming agency employees. The board now is farming the work out to an independent contractor it hired.
Dauphin County First Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo objected to that decision at a Monday hearing with the House Republican Policy Committee, calling it a “case of the fox already gotten into the henhouse.” He noted the board stopped using the state police after it found one of the board’s employees, Michael Rosenberry, falsified his educational credentials on his employment application, a case that is now before the Dauphin County court.
“I believe the state police should be the ones doing the investigation rather than persons appointed by the board,” Chardo said.
Chardo later noted in a phone interview that high-level gaming board staff appeared at Rosenberry’s preliminary hearing in support of him.
But Decker robustly defended the board’s decision in saying “the attacks on our integrity are outrageous” and threatened to “take some personal action” if they continued.
“I don’t understand that comment,” he said about the comparison to a ‘fox in the henhouse.’ “Someone has to be independent and who will be more fair and independent than the state board?”
Decker added that the state police were discontinued from investigating gaming agency employees because it was under manpower and was taking four to fives months to complete the work, while an independent contractor takes three to four weeks.
According to gaming staff, state police still are handling investigations of suppliers, nearly 12,000 vendors who want to do business with gambling operators, applicants for a resort slots license at Nemacolin Woodlands and Resort in Farmington, and basic criminal checks and fingerprinting of gaming staff.
The agency currently has 182 employees and will peak at 220 to 240 employees when slots come online. This will be the largest state agency created in decades.
The president of the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, Bruce Edwards, was unavailable to answer questions on the matter after canceling an appearance before the House panel to attend a conference. The troopers union sued the gaming board last year to stop the hiring of private contractors for background investigations into gaming applicants.
Bucks County Rep. Paul Clymer said he doesn’t know yet if he’ll push for a legislative change securing the preeminence of the state police on background investigations. But he believes they should play an important role in the process.
“We realize the state police couldn’t be doing everything,” he said. “But as far as criminal investigations, the state police are the premier group to do it because of their ability to connect with law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania and other states and internationally as well.”
Rosenberry is not the first agency hire to come under criminal scrutiny.
In January, press aide Kevin Eckenrode was charged with dropping his girlfriend 23-floors to her death out of his Harrisburg apartment window. Shortly afterward, gaming board member William Conaboy, who recommended Eckenrode for the post, resigned.
Two of the board’s lawyers also have been arrested in drunken brawls.
On a separate matter, Decker said next week he would release overall revenue projections done by an indepenent analysis of each of the racetracks.
Media pressure has been mounting for the board’s taxpayer-funded analysis after it was revealed that the board’s revenue numbers substantially differed, 43 percent less, than those of Washington Trotting Association, the owners of The Meadows Racetrack & Casino in Washington County. Decker said he still would not release the full reports done by PricewaterhouseCoopers because much of the information is propriety to the businesses. The board will be using such financial estimates as main criteria for awarding slots licenses.
Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com.