Georgia Lottery Board Chairman Jimmy Braswell said Thursday Gov. Nathan Deal did not unduly influence the board or poison its search for a new lottery president when Deal said he wanted his budget director for the job.
The board named the governor’s preferred candidate, Debbie Dlugolenski Alford, as its sole finalist last week. She would replace Margaret DeFrancisco as president of one of the country’s most successful lotteries.
“I know the governor’s office individually called all the board members [but] the five of us are comfortable with where we are in the process,” Braswell said. “I think everybody feels very comfortable with the choice that we’ve made, when you look at her overall qualifications. As far as myself, do I think there was undue influence? I do not. The phone call I got was simply a matter of making it known to me they had someone in mind that they felt would be a qualified candidate.”
Braswell’s comments are his first public statement on the matter.
Alford currently leads the governor’s Office of Planning and Budget. She served on the lottery board until this month, when she resigned in advance of a vote on her expected appointment. She would be the state’s first lottery director without prior experience running a lottery. DeFrancisco, a lottery veteran, announced her retirement this summer.
The choice of Alford caused one lottery board member to quit in protest. Frances Rogers, who had served on the board since late 2010, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week she felt there was undue influence on the board to choose Alford, and it compromised the board’s search.
No vote has been taken on the appointment of Alford as the lottery’s new president. Braswell said it would be Wednesday at the earliest before a meeting was held to vote on the appointment.
The lottery — with $3.8 billion in sales last year — pumps more than $900 million into the state’s HOPE college scholarship and pre-kindergarten programs each year. Since its inception in 1992, sales have only fallen three years, but they have not kept up with the growth of HOPE, and scholarships have been cut.
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