By David Harry

Staff Writer

A Saco legislator’s efforts to help balance the state budget has led some horse trainers and breeders to say she is heading down the wrong track.

Rep. Linda Valentino (D-Saco), a member of the Maine Legislature Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, is proposing a three-year cap on revenues from slot machines at Hollywood Slots in Bangor distributed to specific state accounts. Revenue earned above the cap would be diverted to the state’s general fund.

By law passed in 2004, 39 percent of the revenues from the 1,000 slot machines at Hollywood Slots are distributed through what is called a cascade fund to help pay for prescription drugs for senior citizens, scholarships in the University of Maine system, and a variety of funds serving the state harness racing industry.

In her presentation to the committee, which could be passed on to the Appropriations Committee looking to help close a $463 million budget gap, Valentino noted the revenue to the Fund for Healthy Maine was capped in last year’s legislative session.

She now is applying the same percentage to the rest of the cascade fund as a matter of fairness, she said in her presentation to the committee.

The cap would be enforced for the next three years and allow for a review of how cascade fund revenue is distributed, said Valentino in her presentation to the committee.

The proposal must be approved by the 13-member committee before it is considered by the Appropriations Committee.

Don Marean, a former legislator from Hollis and a member of the harness racing industry, said he anticipated a decision by the committee Wednesday morning, after the Courier deadline.

Marean said he was confident the proposal did not have enough support to be passed on to the Appropriations Committee.

“We all thought this was a dead issue,” he said Tuesday.

What Valentino sees as fairness that will add $1.8 million to the state general fund this year, $2.2 million in fiscal year 2010-2011 and $2.8 million in fiscal year 2011-2012, is seen as a significant financial blow to the harness racing industry that emerged from tough times because of slot machine revenue, said Jon Chenard, a Saco resident who trains and stables horses at Scarborough Downs.

“This is the first year I have just been able to do horses,” said Chenard about the rebirth of the industry because of increases in purses and renewed interest in ownership.

A worksheet submitted by Valentino with her proposal shows funding for purses at harness racing tracks will be capped at $4.5 million for the next three years, while the fund earned $4.98 million in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.

The fund to help horse breeding will be capped at $1.35 million while it earned $1.49 million in the 2008-2009 fiscal year. Funds to support racing at commercial tracks, support state agricultural fairs hosting racing events and support off-track betting parlors will also be capped if Valentino’s proposal is accepted.

Diann Perkins, a former president and current secretary for the Maine Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association, said she opposed the plan to cap revenue because of the precedent it sets.

“Once they start tinkering with percentages, they open the floodgates,” said Perkins.

At Dupuis Farm on Route 112, owner Lynn Marie Plouffe said she has been breeding, raising and boarding horses for about 30 years.

In the early part of this decade, Plouffe said the industry was struggling, but the prospect of more money coming to the industry also led to investment in equipment, stud fees and horses.

As she walked through the barn at the 322-acre farm she said has been in her family for more than 80 years, Plouffe was joined by Jessica Brewer, who has been working on the farm for 10 years.

Plouffe and Brewer estimated it can as much as $15,000 in feed, veterinary care and boarding to raise a horse from a foal to be ready to compete. The payoff comes from race purses and stud fees, Plouffe said.

“Even if purses go down,” our expenses remain the same,” said Chenard. “Before slots came through, a guy doing what I do could not make a living.”

Plouffe said she is unhappy because money going to administrative costs will not be capped by the proposal and there is already gambling competition through lottery sales.

Chenard agreed.

“The state has provided all the competition and will double-dip now,” he said.

Brewer, 21, a Thornton Academy graduate who said her love of horses brought her to Dupuis Farm before she was a teenager, applies simple economics when she speaks against capping slot machine revenue.

“More money means job security,” she said before wheeling a cart of supplies and feed into the barn.