New interim CEO named at CT Lottery

May 16, 2017, 6:39 pm (1 comment)

Connecticut Lottery

A day after Frank Farricker resigned as Connecticut Lottery Corp. board chairman and interim CEO, the lottery's governing board named a new temporary chief executive to serve until a permanent president/CEO is hired in a month or two at the end of a national search that's now in progress.

At a meeting Tuesday afternoon in lottery headquarters, the board appointed Chelsea Turner, the lottery's chief of strategy and government and operational affairs, to replace Farricker, until a committee of the board completes a national search and board members approve the hiring of a permanent CEO.

Farricker, who had been heavily criticized during two legislative hearings this month about the fraud-plagued 5 Card Cash online game, said that he hoped his resignation, effective immediately, would help the lottery by "by ceasing any further distractions."

He served as acting president/CEO since September, when Anne Noble stepped down from that $212,000-a-year post and entered a controversial separation agreement that is now paying her $25,000 a month through July. The agreement paid Noble at her old salary through Jan. 31, when she reached the 10-year state employment milestone for pension benefits.

A real estate businessman and former Greenwich Democratic Party chairman, Farricker was appointed lottery board chairman by his fellow Fairfield County Democrat, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Farricker sought last year to be paid in the interim position but the Office of State Ethics rejected the idea. More recently, Farricker caused a stir at a May 2 hearing on the 5 Card Cash mess by the legislature's public safety committee when he acknowledged under questioning that he had been interested in applying for Noble's vacant six-figure position.

His interest in the paid CEO job became the subject of a Courant Government Watch column.

Asked further questions last Friday at a second hearing, Farricker revealed that he actually applied for the job in mid-April. But he said he was told a week later by a lottery board member that the state's so-called "revolving-door" ethics provision requires a one-year waiting period before a board member can jump into a paid job at his own agency.

Hartford Courant

Comments

mypiemaster's avatarmypiemaster

That was quick. Sounds more like good riddance.

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