Act 218 scraps lottery panel

Governor signs; shift immediate

With no fanfare, Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Thursday afternoon privately signed into law legislation abolishing the nine-member Arkansas Lottery Commission and placing his administration in control of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery.

The Office of the Arkansas Lottery is now under the state Department of Finance and Administration's Management Services Division.

Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said Senate Bill 7 by Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, is now Act 218. The bill became effective as soon as the governor signed it.

"It already feels good to have someone else worried about it," said former Lottery Commission member Julie Baldridge of Little Rock.

She worked for the lottery starting in 2009 as its spokesman and legislative and commission liaison and served a stint as its interim director after Director Ernie Passailaigue resigned in September 2011. Then-state Sen. Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, appointed her to the commission in August 2013, about five months after her retirement from the agency.

"I am very happy they have done this," Baldridge said Thursday night, referring to the lottery shift.

The governor's staff "seems to have a breadth and depth of knowledge" about the lottery that she didn't initially have, Baldridge said.

In an email shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday, lottery Director Bishop Woosley informed the nine now former commission members that "we have just received notification that the governor has signed SB7 and it is now law and effective immediately."

"I do want to thank you for your service and the time that you have dedicated over the past several years to this agency and the students of Arkansas," Woosley wrote. "Under your guidance, this agency has raised over 480 million dollars for over 150,000 students. I can tell you from my experience in interacting with those students ... and their families they are very thankful for your efforts."

The other eight former commissioners are John "Smokey" Campbell of Hot Springs, Bruce Engstrom of North Little Rock, Dianne Lamberth of Batesville, Raymond Frazier of Little Rock, Doug Pierce of Jonesboro, Mark Scott of Rogers, George Hammons of Pine Bluff and Alex Streett of Russellville.

In July, Hutchinson signaled his support for making the lottery accountable to the governor's office after some lawmakers said they wanted to explore restructuring the lottery and making it part of an agency reporting to the governor. It's "almost like nobody has control over [the lottery]," Lamoureux said at the time.

Their remarks came shortly after the Legislature enacted Hickey's bill to bar the lottery from deploying electronic monitor games.

The Legislature acted in a special session in July, after the Lottery Commission voted to install electronic monitor games to help reverse declining ticket revenue and net proceeds for scholarships. A majority of the Legislature's lottery oversight committee had declared opposition to the games before the commission's vote.

Ticket revenue and the amount raised for scholarships have declined each of the past two fiscal years. The Legislature has twice cut the size of scholarships for future recipients, partly as a result of the net proceeds falling short of initial projections.

Larry Walther, director of the state Department of Finance and Administration, said he's been talking and meeting with Woosley during the past few weeks.

"I'm looking forward to working with him," he said.

Woosley has been lottery director since February 2012 and has worked at the lottery since July 2009.

As for his immediate plans at the lottery, Woosley said that "most of our gaming, sales and advertising plans are set several months out."

"We will continue with our normal business operations with guidance from the governor, Director Walther and [finance department] staff as to how this transition will proceed," he said.

Walther said he wants to look at the payroll with an eye on streamlining.

"We are going to take it one step at a time and move in a reasonable, measured approach," Walther said.

Annual salaries at the lottery total nearly $4.2 million, according to a fiscal 2015 budget submitted to the Legislature in September. The lottery has 74 employees based on information provided by the lottery Thursday afternoon.

A finance department report last month suggested the state could save more than $400,000 a year by eliminating eight lottery employees.

Walther said the department auditors' identification of employees, whose jobs could be eliminated by shifting their duties to the department was "a broad-based" analysis.

"We'll be getting specific" in analyzing the operations, he said.

These eight employees include the lottery's public and legislative affairs director, human resources director, a human resources generalist, three accountants, a payroll specialist and postal carrier.

"We'll do our due diligence and make those decisions," Walther said.

Metro on 02/27/2015

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