Lottery chief made hire despite clash with job ad

Arkansas Lottery Commission Chairman John “Smokey” Campbell talks with lottery Director Bishop Woosley during a meeting Wednesday.
Arkansas Lottery Commission Chairman John “Smokey” Campbell talks with lottery Director Bishop Woosley during a meeting Wednesday.

Arkansas Lottery Director Bishop Woosley said Wednesday that he hired an acquaintance even though she lacked the minimum qualifications listed on the job description that ran in the want ads.

The candidate also had received low marks from one of the people who interviewed her, but she got the job anyway.

Woosley said he encouraged the acquaintance to apply.

“It’s a subjective thing,” Woosley told commissioners during a meeting of the commission’s personnel committee.

Sixty-seven people had applied to be marketing and sales representative for Faulkner, Van Buren and White counties, but the job went to Ellen Seaton, who was working as a sales associate at Cynthia East Fabrics of Little Rock.

The ad, printed in Conway’s Log Cabin Democrat, said the position was available only to residents of those three counties, according to lottery records. Seaton lives in Little Rock.

Seaton began work a few weeks ago and “looks to be a promising employee,” Woosley said. Her starting salary is $37,332 per year.

The marketing and sales representative promotes and sells the lottery’s products, acts as a customer service and account representative and is the primary liaison between the lottery and its retailers, according to the lottery’s advertisement for the job.

Woosley said there were two different job descriptions

— one posted online and another published. He said he was initially unaware of a conflict between the ad that ran in the Log Cabin Democrat and the ad posted on the lottery’s website. The printed ad said the position was available only to residents of the three counties, while an online version of the ad said the same, but it also included language indicating that residents of Faulkner, Van Buren and White counties would receive preference over nonresidents, according to lottery records.

Valerie Basham, the lottery’s human resources director, said in an email dated June 12 to the lottery’s chief legal counsel, Jean Block, that the lottery’s sales director Robert Stebbins and regional sales manager Mark Hearn “have expressed that residency in the assigned territory is required” within the past few months.

But Woosley said the policy isn’t absolute.

“In the hiring letter, we made an exception” based on the commission’s past practice in which at least four marketing and sales representatives and a regional sales manager live outside their sales territories within “a reasonable range,” he said. The lottery has 20 marketing and sales representatives and two regional sales managers, he said.

Woosley said he disagrees with “taking a hard line” on requiring sales and marketing representatives to live within their sales territories because “we can trust our [sales] director enough to make reasonable decision.”

The hiring process will be scrutinized, he said.

“It looks like we have some glitches,” he said, and he wants to take some time to review the matter before the lottery hires any more marketing and sales representatives and bring a recommendation or some guidance to the personnel committee.

Seaton was one of seven candidates who interviewed with lottery regional sales manager Lisa Tater and Stebbins, Woosley said.

According to a May 29 email from Tater to Stebbins, Seaton scored lowest among those interviewed in the categories of sales skills, route experience and overall impression.

Woosley said there “was a difference of opinion” about who the best candidate was but he decided to hire Seaton on the basis of Stebbins’ recommendation.

The low scores only reflected Tater’s opinion, he said.

Seaton did not return a call for comment that was left on her personal voice mail Wednesday evening. Instead, Woosley returned the call and said Seaton was not authorized to speak with a reporter.

Commissioner Mark Scott of Bentonville wondered whether the score sheet raised “any red flags” before Woosley hired Seaton because, Scott said, Seaton appears to be the lowest-qualified candidate.

Woosley said he didn’t see Tater’s scoring sheet from the interviews before he hired Seaton, but “I have some issues with it” and “I wasn’t even aware we keep score sheets.”

Woosley said Seaton was the best candidate “in light of the interview” and that Stebbins recommended hiring Seaton. After the commission’s meeting, Stebbins declined to comment about the matter.

Seaton worked as a sales associate for Cynthia East Fabrics of Little Rock from 2006 until June of this year, as office assistant for Hood and Company Insurance of Pine Bluff from 2003-2005 and as a youth counselor for Seabrook YMCA of Pine Bluff from 2001 2003, according to her resume. She has an associate of arts degree from Southeast Arkansas College and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Scott said it seems “highly irregular” that someone that scored that low was hired for a marketing and sales representative job.

“They were dead last. Just the irregularity of that raises some red flags,” he said.

But Woosley said it’s irregular for a lottery employee to draw up his own scoring grid for an interview, adding he’s never been brought anything like that by any other lottery manager.

“I don’t know that I can put a mathematical formula on how to hire someone,” he said.

In response to a question from Commissioner Julie Baldridge of Little Rock, Woosley said he encouraged Seaton to apply for the job.

After the commission meeting, Woosley explained that he knows Seaton through some friends, he bumped into her and he encouraged her to submit an application.

Commissioner Alex Streett of Russellville said whom to hire for the job ultimately is Woosley’s decision “unless we want to second-guess him and make hiring subject to the approval of the commission.”

As for the scoring of the seven applicants who were interviewed, Streett said that there is “a great disparity” between how the nine commissioners grade the employees who report directly to the commission. Internal auditor Matt Brown and Woosley report directly to the commission.

“The bottom line is the director has to make the decision unless something comes up to show that he absolutely made the wrong decision,” Streett said.

Commissioner Bruce Engstrom of North Little Rock said Woosley is vested with the authority to hire the lottery’s employees and he agreed with Streett.

But Scott said he’s concerned that the lottery hired “the least-qualified person” for the job because someone who wasn’t hired for the job could file a lawsuit against the lottery.

Scott said he doesn’t want to micromanage the lottery’s hiring of employees but he has a duty to ask questions when things look irregular.

Asked whether it’s legal for the lottery to waive an advertised requirement for an employee to live in certain counties, Woosley, a lawyer, replied in an email, “We do not provide legal opinions. With all due respect.”

Streett said it’s “a misstatement to say we hired the least-qualified person.”

The scoring of the seven candidates who were interviewed “is just one person’s rating,” he said.

“I am sure Bishop didn’t hire somebody that he didn’t think that was at least qualified,” he said.

The commission later met in a private executive session to complete their evaluations of Brown and Woosley. After the commission’s meeting, commission Chairman John Campbell declined to comment about the commission’s evaluations of Brown and Woosley, who raised questions about the commission’s evaluations of them last month.

Woosley has been the lottery’s $165,000-a-year director since February 2012, and Brown has worked for the lottery since July 2012 at $112,200 a year.

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