AUSTIN -- Texas budget officials are considering allowing the Texas Lottery Commission to increase the annual salary for the lottery's executive director by almost 32 percent to $185,350 in the hope of filling a job that has been vacant for 14 months.
The request to be able to offer more than the current $140,900 has been sitting for nearly two months on the desks of the budget specialists in the offices of Gov. Rick Perry, who makes $150,000 a year, Comptroller Susan Combs and the Legislative Budget Board.
And while there is no apparent opposition to the increase, according to Edmund Kuempel, chairman of the House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee that oversees the lottery, there is also no urgency to find a new executive director for a sometimes troubled enterprise that generated $3.7 billion in revenues in 2009 and employs 325 people.
"Sometimes there is this tendency to want to fill a position too quickly, and I'd rather be safe than sorry," Kuempel, R-Seguin, said Thursday. "We talked about improving the salary. That was something that had to be rectified. But finding a new director, no, there is no urgency."
The lack of leadership at the top of the lottery is not new. Just four years ago the lottery sacked several managers from the top down for mismanagement after news reports that the lottery had seven times offered jackpots it didn't have the money to pay out. The revelations prompted two state audits that concluded a history of turnover at the executive director position had contributed to an environment of distrust, anger and fear of reprisal among lottery employees.
No such climate exists today, Kuempel said, and his committee, which has in the past been critical of lottery management, said the lottery is in the capable hands of Deputy Executive Director Gary Grief.
Getting someone new to take over for Grief has been hampered, in part, by a lack of continuity in the commission since the death of lottery executive director Anthony Sadberry in late October 2008. The commission has been at its full, three-member complement only with the appointment by Perry of Austin lawyer J. Winston Krause March 27, the same day he named Mary Ann Williamson commission chair.
Williamson told commission spokesman Bobby Heith her priorities have been daily operation projects, including the addition this week of Powerball to the lottery ticket sales lineup in Texas. Perry made the Williamson and Krause appointments relatively late in the last legislative session. Hiring a director late in the session, Williamson told Heith, would not have allowed the new director much time to establish relationships vital in a legislature that has always been fractious over gambling issues.
Read more about the factors that determine how states set lottery directors' salaries, including a trend toward five- and six-figure bonuses. On page 2.
See how Texas' lottery and its executive director's salary compare to those in neighboring states. On page 3.
Search a database of salaries for highly-paid state workers, including some from the Texas Lottery Commission.
Photo of lottery tickets by flickr user Kim Scarborough, used via a Creative Commons license.
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