Georgia oversight committee looks into generous lottery perks

May 7, 2004, 7:17 am (1 comment)

Georgia Lottery

A legislative oversight committee began looking Thursday at the generous employment policies of the Georgia Lottery Corp., whose former director and three top aides collected almost $300,000 for vacation and sick days they were due but never used when they left the state to help start Tennessee's lottery.

Rebecca Paul and three of her vice presidents took advantage of a policy which allows corporation employees to get paid for up to three years' worth of unused vacation time - 18 weeks - and for half of their unused sick leave.

The policy remains in effect for the corporation's 258 employees.

Margaret DeFrancisco, who was named to replace Paul last December, defended the perk as a way to attract and retain top talent in the highly competitive market for those skilled in operating successful state lotteries.

She urged members of the committee to remember that the four "worked very hard to get this organization off the ground" and said the perks amounted to just a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars the corporation produces each year to fund the HOPE scholarship and pre-kindergarten programs in Georgia.

"I wish you'd also keep in mind their success," she said.

While the policies are far more generous than those offered to state employees, lottery employees are not government workers, she said. Instead, they work for a public corporation established under state law to market the games.

As a result, she said, perks for lottery employees must be closer to those offered in the private sector than to those afforded government workers.

Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg, sharply criticized the benefit, saying his constituents wanted an explanation "how this can be."

But Sen. Bill Hamrick, R-Carrollton, who led the battle this year to keep HOPE scholarship expenses in line with lottery money, said, "As long as it's successful, I don't think you're going to find the political will to delve into that too much."

Still, the committee chairman, Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, asked DeFrancisco to produce a report comparing Georgia Lottery Corp. benefits to those of other lotteries and of private sector corporations.

"It's our job to look into any concern to make sure the lottery is operating smoothly," he said. "From what I see, it's operating very smoothly."

Georgia's lottery appears on track to experience its best year ever, easing fears for now that the lottery will dventually fall short of funding the HOPE and pre-k programs.

For the first three quarters of the budget year, the games have produced $589 million for education, $53 million more than last year.

AP

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CASH Only

DeFrancisco ran the corrupt NY Lottery until last year.

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