Arkansas Scholarship Lottery director Bishop Woosley to resign

FILE — Bishop Woosley is shown in this Sept. 5, 2019 file photo.
FILE — Bishop Woosley is shown in this Sept. 5, 2019 file photo.

Bishop Woosley — who has been the director of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery since February 2012 — has submitted his resignation, effective Aug. 3, to pursue other opportunities, state Department of Finance and Administration Secretary Larry Walther announced Tuesday afternoon.

Woosley informed Walther of his resignation in a conversation Monday, and Woosley later provided an email confirming his resignation, said Scott Hardin, a spokesman for the finance department. Hardin said Walther didn’t ask Woosley to resign.

In an email Monday night to Walther, Woosley wrote that “it has been an absolute pleasure working with you over the past several years and I appreciate you allowing me to serve in this capacity.

“I am proud of our accomplishments and am certain that the lottery staff will continue to do great things,” Woosley wrote.

Walther said in a news release that Woosley has played a critical role in the lottery’s success since it started in 2009 and helped raise a record amount of scholarships for Arkansas’ college students.

“I appreciate his leadership and wish him all the best as he moves forward in his career,” he said.

Woosley said Tuesday in a brief telephone interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he plans to “take a little break and find a job.

“I don’t have any plans at this point,” he said. He is paid a salary of $173,382 a year as lottery director, according to the Arkansas transparency website.

Sen. Jim Hickey, R-Texarkana, said Tuesday afternoon, “I thought he was taking something else and that was the extent of it.”

He said he didn’t learn of Woosley’s resignation until earlier Tuesday.

Hardin said Woosley will remain on the job through Aug. 3 and the lottery’s chief legal counsel, Michael Helms, will immediately fill the interim director position to allow for a smooth transition.

“Regarding whether there will be a national search, this determination has not been made,” Hardin said.

Woosley started as the lottery’s procurement director in 2009 and then had chief legal counsel added to his duties shortly thereafter.

In February 2012, the then-Arkansas Lottery Commission voted 6-2 to promote him to director, succeeding Ernie Passailaigue, who was hired for a starting salary of $324,000 to guide the development of the lottery starting in June 2009.

Passaillague, who served until October 2011, was a former South Carolina lottery director.

Woosley continued as the lottery director under Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson. In 2015, Hutchinson signed into law his plan to eliminate the independent nine-member Lottery Commission, and place the lottery agency in the executive branch under the Department of Finance and Administration.

Woosley said Tuesday in a text message to this newspaper that “being the director of the Arkansas lottery has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.

“I want to thank the Governor and Secretary for allowing me to continue to serve as a director when the Hutchinson administration began over 5 years ago,” Woosley wrote in his text message.

“Most importantly, I want to thank the wonderful staff at the lottery for 11 great years,” he said. “I am proud of what we accomplished and I firmly believe they will continue to do great things for the students in Arkansas.”

On Friday, the lottery reported total revenue of $532 million for fiscal 2020, which ended June 30. It raised $89.4 million for college scholarships.

The fiscal 2020 revenue was a record; the amount raised for scholarships was just the sixth-highest in the lottery’s history.

During Woosley’s first three full fiscal years as director, revenue and the amount raised for scholarships — also called net proceeds — declined each year from fiscal 2013-15.

But then the lottery rebounded, and revenue and net proceeds increased almost each subsequent fiscal year.

For fiscal 2021, which started July 1, Woosley has projected total revenue of $465.8 million and $78.2 million in net proceeds.

Asked why he projected lower totals, Woosley told this newspaper in May, “There is a great deal of uncertainty in the lottery world and the world in general right now.

“Economic circumstances have been changing by the week or even by the day over the past month. It is almost impossible to project what changes there will be to the economy and consumer behavior at this point,” he said.

In June, Woosley told lawmakers that the lottery is considering implementing the game of keno — which has been opposed by some lawmakers in the past — and a digital channel as an iLottery offering.

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