LITTLE ROCK — The new director of Arkansas’ lottery said Monday he intends to keep a close watch on management and accounting practices, boost ticket sales and minimize costs — by, among other things, not hiring any vice presidents.
The nine-member state Lottery Commission voted Saturday to name Bishop Woosley, who had been serving as the lottery’s chief legal counsel, as the new director. Former director Ernie Passailaigue resigned in October.
Passailaigue left amid controversy over issues such as two consecutive audits that found fault with the lottery’s management and accounting practices and late payment of taxes to the IRS.
“Hopefully we have the procedures and policies in place to take care of any of those issues,” Woosley, a former Arkansas assistant attorney general, said Monday. “We’re vigilant and constantly watching that. We have an internal auditor, we have a new CFO who has 20 years’ experience with a Fortune 500 company. We’re going to build a better relationship with (the state Division of) Legislative Audit.”
Noting that last year the lottery fell $5 million short of its goal of raising $100 million for college scholarships, Woosley said he wants to get back to meeting that annual goal.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“The one thing we want to do is move the needle to where we sell more online games,” he said, referring to the lottery’s non-scratchoff games. “There’s a greater return for those games, the margin is better for those games.”
Woosley said the lottery will start a Facebook page and a Twitter account to keep Arkansans up to date on its games.
“And we want to educate our players,” he said. “We want to show them how to play the games. I have people tell me, ‘Well, I’d like to play Powerball but I’m a little bit intimidated to walk up to the register because I don’t know what I’m asking for.’”
Woosley also said he would like to add revenue by selling lottery tickets at the lottery’s various claims centers.
“We’re interested in cutting the bottom line as much as possible within the framework of what we have, but also moving sales, driving sales so that we can build up scholarship money the most that’s possible,” he said.
Passailaigue, who formerly ran South Carolina’s lottery, was criticized for hiring two former South Carolina Lottery executives to be his vice presidents at six-figure salaries. They also left in October, one by resignation and the other by termination.
Woosley said he has no immediate plans to replace them, and if he does see a need to later he will hire just one person, probably from within the organization.
“Now, after we’re out of the startup, I just don’t feel like we need it,” he said.
The commission voted to hire Woosley at an annual salary of $165,000, a figure that will need legislative approval. The state’s lottery law allows the director to be paid up to $141,603 but allows that amount to be increased up to 2 1/2 times if legislators approve.
The commission hired Passailaigue in 2009 at an annual salary of $324,000.