LITTLE ROCK – Governor Mike Beebe said Wednesday that the Arkansas Lottery Commission is hurting the public’s confidence in the new games by offering high salaries to its top officials.

Beebe told reporters that he didn’t think it was right that the lottery’s new security director would be paid more than the director of the Arkansas State Police. The lottery this week hired Grant County Sheriff Lance Huey as its security director. Huey will be paid $115,000 a year.

The director of state police is paid about $108,000 a year.

“You’ve got to have the majority of the folks in your state that are confident that you’re doing the right things. A lot of these decisions with regard to the amount of the salaries that are being paid...are having the effect of undermining that,” Beebe told reporters when asked about Huey’s pay.

The lottery commission voted later Wednesday to require that its personnel committee review the hiring of any staff position that pays more than $80,000.

The lottery commission earlier this year hired former South Carolina lottery director Ernie Passailaigue as Arkansas’s lottery director and agreed to pay him $324,000 a year. Passailaigue has since hired two vice presidents who will each be paid $225,000 a year.

Arkansas voters in November approved a constitutional amendment authorizing the games and the commission has set an Oct. 29 deadline to begin selling tickets. Beebe announced on election day that he had voted against the lottery amendment.

Beebe said he had tried to avoid criticizing the commission over the salaries it had paid its top officials.

“Sometimes, you’ve got to say a little bit more. I’ve just been waiting for you to ask,” Beebe said.

Passailaigue said he would be glad to meet with Beebe to talk about his concerns, but said that it’s unfair to compare lottery officials’ salaries to government salaries. Passailaigue said he isn’t surprised by criticism the lottery has faced over the pay, but said that would change once the state starts seeing money come in from the tickets.

“We’re actually selling a product in the marketplace,” Passailaigue said. “Therein lies some of the confusion. What our mission is different than your traditional agency in state government.”

A co-chairman of the lottery’s legislative oversight committee said there’s been growing frustration among legislators about the pay for the games’ employees.

“The more I hear about salaries of commission staff, the angrier I am getting about all of the salaries,” said Sen. David Johnson, D-Little Rock.

Johnson said he was willing to accept the high pay for Passailaigue and his two vice presidents because he believed it matched their experience and would help lure them to Arkansas.

The Republicans’ leader in the House on Wednesday criticized Beebe and said he believed the governor has more say in the lottery’s oversight. House Minority Leader Bryan King of Green Forest noted that Beebe, a Democrat, has three appointments to the nine-member panel that runs the games.

“To act like he doesn’t have any power or say so in this thing is a joke,” King said.

Lottery Commissioner Joe White, who voted in favor of the salary review, said he supported the measure in part because of the concerns raised by Beebe and others.

“Obviously it does concern a lot of people and I think the commission is sympathetic to that and understands that,” White said.