Ohio: Partial Oversight Cost $5.1 Million, 56 Employees

Casino commission picks Ohio attorney general's investigation unit to police Cleveland and Toledo casinos
By Reginald Fields, The Plain Dealer


COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Casino Control Commission on Wednesday picked the state attorney general's criminal investigation team to police casinos in Cleveland and Toledo, which both are expected to open next year.

A security decision for the other two casinos, in Columbus and Cincinnati, which are slated to open in 2013, will be made later, but the attorney general's Bureau of Criminal Investigation could be positioned to win contracts for those facilities as well, a commission official said.

BCI was chosen over a bid from the state Highway Patrol.

"I am pleased that the Ohio Casino Control Commission has announced that they will be using BCI's law enforcement and criminal investigation services as they prepare for the opening of casinos in Ohio," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said in a statement.

The commission eventually hopes to have its own policing unit managing the four casinos. But in the meantime, it decided to negotiate a temporary "memorandum of understanding" agreement with BCI because it already has agents who are trained in forensic accounting and computer crimes, the types of high-tech crimes associated with high-stakes gambling.

Working with a state law enforcement agency "would make sense because they already have the officers in place and personnel to get them trained to be officers at the casinos," said Matt Schuler, the commission's executive director.

Schuler said he is unsure how long the agreement will last, saying it depends on how quickly the commission can organize its own policing unit.

"The goal of the commission is to at some point in the future have gaming agents be commission employees and not exist forever under an MOU with another agency," he said.

And if the BCI officials perform well, Schuler said he'd consider working with DeWine to make the BCI agents employees of the commission.

"I would contemplate that as certainly a possibility," Schuler said. "If you have folks there and trained and doing a great job, that would make an abundance of sense."

June E. Taylor, the commission's vice chair, added that the commission was pleased with BCI's existing working agreements with local police agencies. The security plan DeWine pitched to the commission in September relies heavily on working with local police for security and to investigate some crimes.

BCI's proposal was for $5.1 million next year and slightly less in subsequent years, depending on equipment and travel needs. The plan would involve 56 staffers across the four casinos. Because the commission has only reached an agreement for security at two casinos so far, those figures will have to be adjusted.

Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Tom Charles had pitched a proposal to the commission for the highway patrol to manage the security at a cost of about $4.6 million annually with a staff of 44 people.

The commission will pay for the security through a budget derived from a portion of gambling proceeds.

The attorney general's office has announced that BCI agent Kurt Shearer will be the agent in charge of the casino gambling unit.