Three companies said Friday that they want to be hired as a consultant by Arkansas' lottery, which has seen its revenue and net proceeds for college scholarships slip for three consecutive fiscal years.
The companies that formally expressed interest and presented their qualifications for the job are Camelot Global Services North America, Delehanty Consulting LLC and QLot Consulting, according to information released by the state Department of Finance and Administration late Friday afternoon. Camelot Global Services, which has offices in London and Philadelphia, was hired by the Arkansas Legislative Council as a lottery consultant last year.
Delehanty Consulting LLC is based in Verona, Wis., and QLot Consulting has offices in Topeka, Kan., and Sweden, according to their websites.
The state Department of Finance and Administration's Office of Procurement issued a request for qualifications June 15 for "business plan and consulting services" for the Office of the Lottery.
The consultant will make recommendations and plans for increasing the revenue generated by the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship program and for controlling the lottery's operating costs. The consultant that gets the contract will be asked to develop a five-year business and strategic plan and "provide consultant services on an as-needed basis throughout the life of the contract," the request for qualifications states.
The lottery has budgeted $200,000 for a consultant in fiscal 2016, which started July 1, said lottery Director Bishop Woosley.
The term of the contract "shall be for two years," and the anticipated starting date for the contract is Aug. 14. Upon mutual agreement by the consultant and the lottery, the contract may be renewed on a year-to-year basis for up to five additional one-year terms or a portion of that.
But the total contract "shall not be more than seven years," according to the lottery's request for qualifications.
The Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship program is financed by lottery proceeds plus $20 million a year in state general revenue. There's also a $20 million lottery reserve account that is used to cover temporary cash shortfalls in the program.
The lottery has helped finance more than 30,000 college scholarships during each of the past five fiscal years. But the Arkansas Legislature has cut the size of the scholarships repeatedly, in part because the lottery's net proceeds fell short of projections.
This consultant will be the second consultant hired by the state to review the lottery's operations during the past year.
In September, at Sen. Jimmy Hickey's request, the Legislative Council voted to hire, without taking bids, Camelot Global Services. Hickey, a Texarkana Republican, is now co-chairman of the Legislature's Lottery Oversight Committee.
The consultant, which received $169,500 for its services, told lawmakers in December that "the overriding strategy must be to move the lottery away from a gambling organization to a consumer goods sales and marketing organization." The consultant also said the lottery has too many scratch-off and draw games, lags behind its peers in per-capita sales and profits, pays more than its peers do to its vendors and isn't perceived as trusted.
In December, Woosley told lawmakers the lottery already had implemented some of Camelot's suggestions and was in the process of implementing some of its other recommendations. Woosley, who makes $165,000 annually, has been the lottery's director since February 2012.
Last week, the lottery reported funds it raised in fiscal 2015, which ended June 30, fell by $9 million to $72.4 million.
Woosley has attributed the declining net proceeds mostly to declining ticket sales for the Mega Millions and Powerball jackpot games.
The lottery started selling tickets Sept. 28, 2009.
After raising $82.7 million for scholarships in nine months in fiscal 2010, the lottery raised $94.2 million during the first full fiscal year, 2011.
Proceeds for scholarships climbed to $97.5 million in fiscal 2012, but they dropped by $7.2 million to $90.3 million in 2013 and by $8.9 million to $81.4 million in 2014.
Woosley is projecting that net proceeds for college scholarships will climb to $79.5 million in fiscal 2016.
Metro on 07/18/2015