As we have written time and again, the Arkansas Lottery takes in millions of dollars every month, but it pays only a fraction of its revenue to scholarships.
Most of the money goes to prizes.
Among other things, the Arkansas Lottery spends a lot of money on its operational expenses — especially travel.
We’ve written before about how the Arkansas Lottery reimburses its employees for travel across the state instead of using Department of Finance vehicles, which are cheaper.
Since July 1, 2019, the Arkansas Lottery Office has spent more than $143,000 on mileage reimbursements.
One employee alone, according to the state’s website, has been reimbursed more than $10,000 for mileage.
Considering that state employees receive 42 cents for every mile they travel on state business in their personal vehicles, $10,000 would be enough money to drive nearly 24,000 miles!
All told, mileage reimbursements appear to be the Arkansas Lottery’s eighth highest operational expense.
There are plenty of ways the Arkansas Lottery could cut costs and provide more money for college scholarships.
Unfortunately, that’s something the Lottery Office doesn’t seem interested in doing.
Photo Credit: Airtuna08 at English Wikipedia [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]
Updated: 4/1/2020 to reflect the latest mileage reimbursements.
