Jim RosicaFlorida Lottery Secretary Cynthia O’Connell plans to resign as questions mount about her work habits, travel schedule and spending.
Gov. Rick Scott announced O’Connell’s departure, which is effective Oct. 1, on Friday.
O’Connell was appointed by Scott in February 2011. A press release from the Governor’s Office said she plans “to explore opportunities in the private sector.”
O’Connell’s abrupt resignation came days after POLITICO Florida reported that she had taken nearly nine weeks of vacation last year and racked up nearly $30,000 in travel bills.
The Associated Press in the last month had asked for O’Connell’s credit card bills and asked questions about her dealings with lobbyists who represent vendors seeking business with her agency.
O’Connell’s resignation letter doesn’t mention any of the scandals surrounding her, instead focusing on the Lottery’s “success” and increasing sales to $5.5 billion this year.
At the same time, a dizzying increase in lottery winners – some at near-impossible odds – has been raising fraud questions over the last year.
While department employees were under investigation, O’Connell was on the road, attending conferences, giving speeches or watching a Miami Heat playoff game, according to POLITICO Florida.
“Cynthia has been part of my team since my first year in office and she has done a tremendous job serving Florida families,” Scott said.
She was paid a salary of $141,000 per year, state records show.
“I truly appreciate her dedication to making Florida the best state in the nation for families and our students, and I hope she will continue using her skills to serve our state even as she moves on to other career opportunities,” Scott said.
Meantime, Scott appointed Tom Delacenserie, the Lottery’s deputy secretary of sales, as the interim secretary.
O’Connell is the first high-profile departure from Scott’s administration in some time. The Republican governor first took office in 2011 and was re-elected last year.
In 2013, then-Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll stepped down amid questions about her prior publicity work for a charity implicated in a widespread gambling ring. Carroll was not accused of any wrongdoing.
That same year, Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett resigned after allegations that he had bumped up the grade of a charter school run by a major Republican donor during his previous job as Indiana’s elected schools chief.
And David Wilkins also quit that year as secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families, the state’s child-welfare agency, following the deaths of four children in varying levels of state care.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
One comment
michelle ubben
August 28, 2015 at 4:07 pm
It’s sad to see a dedicated public servant who vaulted to the Florida Lottery to among the best in the nation wrongly characterized. The facts are that under Cindy O’Connell’s leadership, the Florida Lottery became the second most efficient lottery in the nation and had one of the highest scratch off sales of any lottery. The news story about her leave time was flat wrong. She took 33 days of leave in a year when she got married after 14 years of widowhood. She also worked 20 weekends with no comp time. Her service is done, but it was excellent, and let’s not lose sight of that.
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