The Arkansas Lottery’s security director, Lance Huey, is retiring at the end of June after nearly five years in the job, Lottery Director Bishop Woosley said Wednesday.
Huey, 49, said that when he was hired in July 2009, he hoped to work for the lottery for three years, but stayed a little longer and now “I am just ready to move on.”
A former Grant County sheriff, Huey said he might work somewhere else after Jan. 1., but he declined to discuss his possibilities, saying he’s got “some ideas.”
Woosley said the security-director job will be advertised starting next week and he hopes to hire someone around the time Huey leaves.
The salary range for the job is between $92,515 and $115,644 a year, said Jean Block, chief legal counsel for the lottery.
Huey’s annual salary is $115,644, the same as when he was hired, said Woosley. Huey has received one-time lump payments for any cost of-living increases and merit bonuses granted since then under the state’s compensation system.
After Huey’s hiring in 2009, Gov. Mike Beebe said it was “inappropriate” for the lottery security director to be paid more than the then-director of the Arkansas State Police, Winford Phillips, whose salary was $108,032 a year.
But the lottery’s then-Director Ernie Passailaigue said Huey’s salary was comparable to what he had paid his security director at the South Carolina Lottery.
Current state police Director Stanley Witt is paid $117,610 a year, according to the state Office of Personnel Management.
Huey served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1984-1990, worked up the ranks of the state police from 1991-2006 and served as Grant County sheriff from 2007-2009. He also was a Grant County Quorum Court member from 2003-2007.
Huey’s retirement will come nearly a year after the lottery’s former deputy security director, Remmele Mazyck, pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of wire fraud and money laundering after admitting he stole lottery tickets with a face value of $477,893.
In November, a federal judge sentenced Mazyck to serve 37 months in prison and ordered him to pay more than $482,000 in restitution.
Mazyck was one of several former South Carolina Lottery employees whom Passailaigue hired after the Arkansas Lottery Commission chose Passailaigue in June 2009 to start Arkansas’ lottery.
In July 2009, Passailaigue said he hired Mazyck because the deputy security director needed to have had lottery experience to train Huey, and Mazyck would understand the security requirements of the multistate Powerball game.
Both Huey and Woosley said Wednesday that Huey’s pending retirement is not tied to the theft of lottery tickets.
“That has absolutely noting to do with the decision to leave,” Huey said.
“There is no doubt that was a black eye for the lottery and me,” he acknowledged, calling it “a huge disappointment” after he placed his trust in Mazcyk.
But, Huey said, “We weathered that storm” and lottery officials have gotten almost all of that money back.
Woosley said the lottery has recovered $461,046.98 through insurance claims.
Woosley disclosed Huey’s pending retirement in an email to the nine-member Lottery Commission and the lottery’s employees two weeks ago.
Woosley wrote in an email dated April 17 that he received “official notice” that “our long-time colleague and friend, Lance Huey, is heading off to that great R in the sky: retirement” after they “began discussing this” several weeks ago.
“I know this was a very difficult decision for him as he loves his job and the people of this agency, but with sufficient time in his state retirement (I hope we all get there someday) he wants to move on to start a new chapter in his life,” Woosley wrote in an email obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette through a public-records request.
Huey’s experience, background and “funny Grant County stories have served us well in the past 4 + years,” Woosley’s email said.
“We will miss him and I have no doubt this is not the last we will see of him, either as a visitor in our office, or maybe as the leader of a Grant County political machine,” Woosley wrote.
Woosley said Wednesday that he “was joking and being nice” when he made the “political machine” comment, and has no idea what Huey will do next.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 05/01/2014