The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery's sales director, Mitch Chandler, didn't meet the minimum requirements for the post in the lottery's job description, according to records obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Lottery Director Bishop Woosley said Thursday he waived the requirement for Chandler to have a bachelor's degree.
The job was not posted, and the public wasn't invited to apply; lottery officials hope the new sales director will help reverse years of declining revenue and scholarship proceeds.
The Arkansas Legislature's transfer of the lottery to the state Department of Finance and Administration allows the waiver of the educational requirement, said Woosley, who waived a residency requirement to fill a marketing and sales representative job at the lottery last year.
"Now that we are a DFA agency, we are allowed to substitute other job-related experience for all or part of the basic requirements. He has the requisite experience for the job and other unique experience in marketing, business development and communication that will be valuable in this role," Woosley said.
Chandler is the only member of the lottery's management team without a bachelor's degree, Woosley said.
Chandler, who started working for the lottery June 30, is being paid $104,079 a year.
He replaced Robert Stebbins, who was fired June 29 from his $98,187 a year job after five years at the lottery.
Woosley, who has been the lottery's $165,000-a-year director since February 2012, said the lottery didn't advertise the position because "there was an urgency to have the position filled given that the sales director oversees a staff of 22 people and the day-to-day sales team management needed to be covered as soon as possible.
"There were also considerations such as upcoming retail initiatives and upcoming multistate game changes which require that we have someone in that position as quickly as possible to be trained and prepared for those tasks," he said.
Chandler of Little Rock worked as communications director for current Department of Finance and Administration Director Larry Walther from 2003-07 when Walther was the director of the Arkansas Department of Economic Development.
Chandler's 2003 hiring was announced days after Walther was selected to head the economic development agency.
While Walther said former Department of Economic Development Director Jim Pickens hired Chandler before Walther succeeded Pickens in December 2003, he acknowledged that he was "part of the reason" that Chandler was hired to be the lottery's sales director.
"He's very competent. This is right down his wheelhouse," Walther said.
He said that Chandler has experience in communications, radio and television, and sales to help "get the word out across the state and [help] in supervising the people doing the work."
Gov. Asa Hutchinson's administration assumed control of the lottery Feb. 26, after the Republican governor signed Act 218 into law. It abolished the nine-member Arkansas Lottery Commission and placed the lottery under the state Department of Finance and Administration's Management Services Division.
Hutchinson said Thursday in a written statement that "we were made aware of the decision to terminate the previous sales director and to hire a new sales director, and I left that decision with the director of the Department of Finance and Administration."
The lottery has helped finance more than 30,000 Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarships a year during the past five fiscal years. But the Legislature has cut the size of the scholarships for some future recipients three times partly due to net proceeds falling short of the lottery's projections.
Chandler's resume lists his education as including "various studies" at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with "no degree," photography and western culture classes at the University of London in England, plus courses at the Alliance Francais in Paris, France.
A bachelor's degree -- preferably in business administration, marketing or a related field -- and five to eight years of related work experience is required. Supervisory or management experience, preferably in a sales or retail environment, is also necessary, the job description stated.
Woosley said Chandler satisfied every requirement other than holding a college degree.
He described Chandler as a former sales promotion manager at KATV, a business development director at Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods, a senior vice president at Martin-Wilbourn Partners and a chief operating officer at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce.
"Those positions totaled more than 5 years in sales and business development," Woosley wrote in an email. "At KTHV he supervised a newsroom of 50+ and at WJXX [in Jacksonville, Fla.] a staff of +100 shared with another manager."
Chandler's resume lists his latest employment as a member of Connect Global Tech LLC, a digital production and event marketing production firm, since December 2012.
Chandler didn't return telephone calls to his personal and work numbers Thursday.
More than a year ago, Woosley faced questions from his bosses on the lottery commission about him hiring an acquaintance even though she lacked the minimum qualifications listed on the job description that ran in the want ads.
The candidate had received low marks from one of the people who interviewed her, but "It's a subjective thing," Woosley told commissioners during a meeting of the commission's personnel committee in June 2014.
Sixty-seven people had applied to be the marketing and sales representative for Faulkner, Van Buren and White counties, but the job went to Ellen Seaton, who was working as a sales associate at Cynthia East Fabrics of Little Rock.
At that time, Woosley said Seaton was the best candidate "in light of the interview" and that Stebbins recommended hiring Seaton. Stebbins has declined to comment about the matter.
Asked last year whether it was legal for the lottery to waive an advertised requirement that an employee live in certain counties, Woosley, a lawyer, replied in an email, "We do not provide legal opinions. With all due respect."
Walther, who referred questions about Stebbins' firing to Woosley on June 29, said Thursday that Woosley decided to fire Stebbins and "I concurred with it."
"We needed to make some changes to improve the results at the lottery, and that's one of the things we decided to do," he said. "We are trying to get the right people in there to accomplish the objectives we've been given."
He said he doesn't have any other personnel changes at this time.
Woosley has declined to explain why Stebbins was fired, saying he doesn't comment on personnel matters.
Stebbins also declined to comment about his termination Thursday. He is a former senior vice president and director of marketing for Metropolitan National Bank and national account manager for Alltel Corp. who also worked for Acxiom Corp., Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods and KATV. He has a bachelor's degree in communications from UALR.
Metro on 07/10/2015