State Lottery Still Spending Thousands on Travel

Since last July, the Arkansas Lottery has spent more than $151,000 reimbursing employees for their travel mileage, according to the Arkansas Transparency website.

That’s up about $8,000 since April 1 of this year.

We’ve written repeatedly about how the Arkansas Lottery reimburses its employees for travel across the state instead of using Department of Finance vehicles, which are cheaper.

When state employees use their personal vehicles for work-related travel, they can be reimbursed 42 cents for every mile they drive.

In light of that, it appears Arkansas Lottery employees have driven their personal vehicles nearly 360,000 miles on official, Lottery business since July 1, 2019.

It may seem odd to some people that Arkansas Lottery employees have continued to to receive reimbursements for travel mileage amid a statewide pandemic.

Spending six figures on mileage reimbursement is just another example of wasteful spending at the Arkansas Lottery.