NOW OPEN
The Art of Living: Japanese American Creative Experience at Rohwer
Internee art and other objects from the World War II–era Rohwer Relocation Center in Desha County Presented by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies Concordia Hall, Arkansas Studies Institute • 401 President Clinton Ave. Open through November 26, 2011 www.butlercenter.org/rohwer
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LOTTERY, CONT. play, that we know what they want to do and that we can do it in a way to maximize our revenue.” Halter believes lottery administrators have worked to correct mistakes that have come up along the way. What’s needed now, he says, is a rigorous analysis of who is taking advantage of the scholarship funds, how successful the program has been in helping families afford higher education and the impact it will ultimately have on graduation rates. “This is not over,” Halter says. “We need to continually look at what we need to do to improve financial aid for Arkansas families and what we need to do to improve educational achievement in K-12 education. How do we help students and families make that transition from high school to college? How do we make sure that more and more folks have the opportunity to participate in some kind of higher education? It doesn’t have to be a formal program. There are a number of different ways that we need to focus on helping those families. That’s a key part of this equation. What comes next? How do we improve what we have?” While Engstrom has been critical of how the lottery operates, he still believes, on balance, the lottery has been a good thing for the state. “If you ignore the fact that a lot of the money coming from the lottery is probably coming from people that can ill afford to pay it — and I have to sometimes force myself not to think about that — then the good is outweighing the bad. What I was not taking into account when I was against
it was the good that comes from the money, and that’s scholarships. That’s the part that has really opened my eyes.” Engstrom is not so sure the lottery’s troubles are over. His biggest fear, every time he sees a headline with the word “lottery” in it, is that Arkansans are losing confidence in the enterprise. “People are losing confidence in what’s going on and I keep telling them it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” he says. “I don’t blame people for being mad; they ought to be mad. I just hope they don’t get so mad that they want to take these scholarships away from the kids. I don’t want that to happen.” After Passailaigue announced his resignation, Halter had this to say: “You’ve got to assess this from a big picture and longerterm perspective. I think going forward, we need to make sure we have a professional that’s becomes the head of this. Because it’s a $500 million dollar a year competitive enterprise. It is subject to competitive pressures and you don’t want this to be a place for a political appointment. You want a professional appointment. It’s not a place for political cronyism and it’s not a place for political has-beens. I think it’s important to note, too, that the average Arkansan does not care about the day to day machinations of the lottery. They just care if they’re going to be able to get a scholarship for their kids.” When asked if he had any regrets about his time at the lottery so far, Passailaigue said simply, “Life is a learning process and successful people both learn from their mistakes and build on their positive decisions.”
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never go by myself, or let one of my staff go by themselves.” For Step 6, a deputy sheriff would be enlisted to keep the peace. But Buckner has never actually presided over a sale. All the delinquents either pay up or go out of business before then, she said. When they go out of business, the county never gets its money. Buckner said that some of the people who criticized the Dizzy’s visit said she shouldn’t have been going after a $900 debt when there were people on the county delinquent list who owed much more, a couple of them in six figures. But all of those delinquents are out of business, Buckner said, collection-proof. The debts that she can actually collect are all down around the Dizzy’s range. Incidentally, “Vermillion Water Grill was in that location before Dizzy’s,” Buckner said. “They owed $4,180, but they’re out of business. I can’t collect. I liked Vermillion. That has not been a good site for us.” Buckner, 60, has been in office 10 and a half years. She expects she has a few terms left, although that could change. She was 49, a banker who’d never run for office, “not
even the student council,” when she heard that Treasurer Pat Tedford would not seek re-election in 2000. She decided to give it a try. She hasn’t had an opponent since that first election, but she thinks that kind of goes with the territory. The county policy makers, the sheriff and county judge, are the ones who draw opponents. It was while she was working at the old Worthen Bank that she met Debbye Wolter, who is now her chief deputy. One difference between being a private banker and a county tax collector, Buckner said, is that as a banker, she could work out a payment plan with debtors — say, $100 this month and $100 next month. As a collector, she can accept one full year’s payment, but nothing less. The collector serves a two-year term and there’s no limit on how many terms she can serve. Her salary is $80,706. Buckner’s office collected $380,921,000 in taxes last year, including $49,005,000 in business taxes. She sends out 386,000 tax bills a year. “I don’t need publicity,” she said. “My name is in everybody’s mail box.”