The following blog post is by Family Council staff member Ken Yang.
Late Friday afternoon (when most people aren’t paying close attention to the news), the Arkansas Lottery Commission (ALC) held a press conference to let everyone know their former deputy security director stole $477,893 in winnings from lottery tickets.
This comes only a few days after the ALC reports the lottery came up $33 million short of their projected revenue for 2013—meaning less money for students’ scholarships.
Are we ever going fix the lottery, or will we just keep blaming the people that were there before the current administration? Director Woosley says there is ‘lots of fault to go around in the agency.’ But who? While the lottery makes excuse after excuse, the students suffer, and lottery officials, quite honestly, do not seem to care.
The most egregious of all statements from Director Woosley was that if their claim for the stolen money was approved (since ALC is insured against theft), the students of Arkansas would not be denied scholarship funding. Are you serious? Why would the students be the ones suffering even if their claim was not approved? Why not the Lottery’s administration, which is seventh-highest in the nation in terms of cost? Why are students the last ones the Lottery pays and the first ones to suffer if something like this happens?
I am appalled, once again, that the students of Arkansas are the lowest of priority to the Arkansas Lottery Commission.
