By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The newly hired executive director of Arkansas’ lottery said Friday he wants to hire two vice presidents with lottery experience, and he already has two people in mind for the jobs — both of whom now work for South Carolina’s lottery.
Ernie Passailaigue, currently employed as South Carolina’s lottery director but scheduled to start July 1 as director of Arkansas’ lottery, told the Arkansas Lottery Commission he wants to hire a vice president of gaming and a vice president of administration.
Passailaigue said it probably would be necessary to pay the vice presidents salaries of $200,000 or more, but having only three upper-management positions would minimize administrative costs. He said 70 to 90 people would be hired for lower positions.
“The track that I would be suggesting would be to hire … two heavy-duty professionals and fill up your group from there, which would be, the majority, Arkansans without lottery experience that you would teach and give them those skills sets” so that someday the lottery could be run by Arkansans, Passailaigue said in his first report to the commission.
Passailaigue (Pass-a-lay’) said he plans to offer the vice president jobs to David Barden, director of marketing and product development for South Carolina’s lottery, and Ernestine Middleton, that lottery’s director of internal operations and human resources.
The Arkansas Lottery Commission has agreed to pay Passailaigue $324,000 a year, an increase of nearly $100,000 from his salary in South Carolina.
Passailaigue defended his salary Friday and questioned whether it was proper for reporters to compare his pay to the pay of lottery directors in other states.
“When you call around and ask for other lottery salaries, you’re talking about somebody employed in an existing, ongoing business who doesn’t have these issues that we’re faced with now,” he said. “The valid comparison really is to look at lottery launch salaries and what it took to attract talent and how successful the launch was.”
Earlier this week the Arkansas News Bureau surveyed seven states with populations similar to Arkansas’ and found that their lottery directors all made under $200,000. The bureau did the survey after Ray Thornton, the lottery commission’s chairman, said $324,000 was in the “mid-range” of lottery directors’ salaries.
The commission gave Passailaigue an informal OK to continue developing his management plan, though Commissioner Ben Pickard of Searcy said he would like to see more information about comparative salaries of lottery employees.
Passailaigue told the commission he expects scratch-off tickets to go on sale in November. He said he wants to move as quickly as possible, because every day the lottery is not in operation the state loses the chance to collect as much as $1.5 million in ticket sales.
Passailaigue also said he wants the lottery to be “socially and financially conservative.” He explained that he does not want to make exaggerated claims about the benefits of playing the lottery or go overboard in advertising the games.
“This is about … having fun and entertainment with your discretionary dollar and not your food money or your rent money,” he said.
Passailaigue said he has already picked one staff member, Julie Baldridge of Little Rock, who will serve as an aide at a salary to be set later. Baldridge has served previously as an aide to Thornton and to Senate President Pro Tem Bob Johnson, D-Bigelow.
Several commissioners said they were pleased with the work Passailaigue has done so far, especially since he has not officially started on the job yet.
“I’m impressed with you after one week of not working with us,” Thornton joked.
