Lottery Oversight Committee Meeting

I was in Little Rock yesterday and attended the Arkansas Lottery Commission Legislative Oversight Committee. I appreciate the work of the legislators serving on the committee. I am confident that they are putting in long hours as they work to be sure that the lottery is implemented in a way that will make all of Arkansas proud of it.

As we worked on the legislation implementing the lottery during the session we tried very hard to keep the lottery transparent so that the citizens of Arkansas could be comfortable that everything was being done properly and above board. As I visit with my constituency I am afraid that we have failed in the public's perception. I listened yesterday to the discussion about the proposed contract with the vendor for the "online lottery game services and lottery gaming systems and services" and I was frustrated with many of the answers. One of the questions being that we will be paying more than South Carolina for the services. The very long answer to that question seemed to be that we were a start up lottery and it would cost more and that we were getting more services included in the contract than other states. I do understand start up costs but I cannot find comfort with start up costs lasting the length of the seven year contract (excluding the option to renew the contract three times).

You will recall I was not a proponent of the lottery and I did not vote for it in the general election. With the people of the state having spoken by passing it with a large margin it seemed/seems to be the right thing to do to implement it as soon as possible so that we can begin to accumulate dollars for the scholarships. Like most of Arkansas I continue to hope that the lottery will be good for our state by helping both traditional and nontraditional students further their education and I am absolutely convinced that in order to attract and retain jobs in this global economy we must have an educated workforce.