Treasurer takes top post with Tenn. lottery

Oct 17, 2003, 4:32 am (Post a comment)

Tennessee Lottery

New job pays Adams $180,000

Tennessee State Treasurer Steve Adams, who has held the post since 1987, is resigning Oct. 24 to become chief administrative officer of the Tennessee Lottery, with a pay raise of at least $50,000, the lottery announced Thursday.

Adams, 52, is one of the three state "constitutional officers" appointed by the state legislature, along with the comptroller and the secretary of state.

Gov. Phil Bredesen will appoint an interim successor until the legislature convenes in January. Lawmakers will then elect someone to serve the remainder of Adams's two-year term, which ends in January 2005.

At the Tennessee Lottery Corp., Adams will run the day-to-day administrative functions of the lottery, including management of facilities and contracts with the thousands of retailers who will sell lottery tickets when it goes into operation early next year. He will also be responsible for internal auditing, and will report to lottery chief executive officer Rebecca Paul, who announced his appointment Thursday.

He will be paid a base annual salary of $180,000 plus incentive bonuses, terms of which have not been negotiated, according to lottery spokesman Will Pinkston. As state treasurer, Adams is paid $131,124 this year.

Adams, who is vacationing on the Gulf Coast, said in a telephone conference call with reporters that he "agonized" over the decision but decided that the opportunity to help start the $1 billion lottery organization "from the ground up" was too much to turn down.

Adams is a Democrat but will be prohibited from active political involvement under the statute that set up the lottery. He said the possibility that a Republican takeover of at least one of the two houses of the legislature - which would put his job in jeopardy - was "not really" a factor in his decision. He acknowledged that the substantial pay increase, capping a 30-year career in state government, was a factor.

Paul also announced the appointment of Sidney Chambers as the lottery's executive vice president for sales and marketing, also with a base salary of $180,000. Chambers was senior vice president for sales and marketing at the Georgia Lottery Corp., which Paul also headed, since its startup 10 years ago.

Adams's departure opens a rare vacancy among the trio of constitutional officers who occupy the offices across from the governor's on the first floor of the State Capitol. Before Adams's 17 years as state treasurer, his predecessor, Harlan Mathews, held the office for 12 years. The last midterm vacancy in one of the three seats occurred in 1989, when former Secretary of State Gentry M. Crowell committed suicide.

The immediate speculation on a successor focused on Adams's executive assistant, Dale Sims, 47, who has worked in the office as a top aide since 1982. Lydia Lenker, the governor's press secretary, said Bredesen will name an interim treasurer soon.

Adams, a native of Delina, Tenn., joined state government as a departmental budget officer in 1973 after graduating with an accounting degree from Austin Peay State University. He joined the Treasury Department two years later and has been there since.

The treasurer is in charge of banking, managing and investing more than $30 billion in various state funds.

GoMemphis

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