THE COURIER-JOURNAL KENTUCKY REGIOI 5NESDAY, MARCH 13, 1996 B3 Problems plague computer firm serto take over lottery contract By TODD MURPHY Staff Writer The company chosen to take over the Kentucky lottery's lucrative online computer contract this fall is still having significant problems with its lottery computer services in Arizona problems that could mean millions of dollars in fines against it there. On Sunday, Automated Wagering International 2,300 terminals in Arizona were disabled as the company was trying to fix software glitches that had caused previous problems. Sunday's system failure, which left some lottery terminals disabled until late Monday morning, came after months of sporadic problems with Arizona Lottery computers since AWI took over in November. "I think our position at this point is we're extremely frustrated," said Sam Wakasugi, director of marketing for the Arizona Lottery. "We're beyond frustrated.
We have never had problems (since the lottery's inception in 1982) up until four months ago. And now the reputation we've built the last 14 years is in jeopardy." Arizona Lottery officials might cancel AWI's contract, but they emerged from a meeting Monday saying it would remain in effect for now. Top Kentucky lottery officials went to Arizona last week to explore the problems. "Obviously, with the series of events that has occurred in Arizona, you have to view it with some concern" said Kentucky Lottery spokesman Rick Redman. We're watching it as closely as we can (and) will continue to make sure we're looking out for the interests of the commonwealth." He said final contract negotiations with AWI are continuing.
"At this point we believe we'll be able to find a way to come to agreement," he said. Last fall a Kentucky lottery committee recommended awarding the lottery's contract for on-line services the computer terminals and oper ations that run Lotto-type games to Atlanta-based AWI over its main rival, GTECH, of Rhode Island. GTECH, the industry leader, has held the Kentucky contract since the lottery's inception in 1989. The company is scheduled to continue providing those services until this fall, when lottery officials expect AWI to take over. AWI Vice President Charles Brooke has said and the Arizona Lottery's Wakasugi agrees that the AWI takeover was complicated by the limited time AWI had to set up its system.
Still, some of AWI's problems seem unrelated to the setup time. And those problems including the inability of AWI's computers to validate scratch-off ticket winners, the company's computers' not recognizing Feb. 29 this year, and Sunday's problems have cost the Arizona Lottery several million dollars in sales, lottery officials said. The Arizona Lottery has hired a consultant to determine what losses AWI has caused and to determine whether the company is complying with its contract, Wakasugi said. Officials hope the consultant will present findings on potential fines this week.
AWI's Brooke, meanwhile, said no one has determined that all the problems have been AWI's fault. Company officials have acknowledged blame for some problems, however, and Brooke, who has moved from Atlanta to Arizona, said it has been a frustrating four months for company officials as well. "We've never been through anything like this in our existence," he said yesterday. "It's never happened before, and it's damn sure never going to happen again." Kentucky Treasurer John Kennedy Hamilton, whose office makes him a member of the Kentucky Lottery's board, said the state should keep asking questions about AWI. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at this situation and have concerns," he said.
-St i 1 $4.1 million less than the Education Department asked for. The budget now goes to the Senate, where the chairman of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee, Sen. Mike Moloney, D-Lexington, said he could not say what will happen. "I've got to poll the members yet," he said. But Sen.
Joe Meyer, D-Covington, the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he expects the Senate to go along with the state board. "We'll honor the contract," he said. The contract depends on the legislature's appropriating enough money. The chairman of the state board, Joseph Kelly, said it does not have a "fall-back position" if the legislature does not approve the money for the test, although he is "cautiously optimistic" that it will. "It's such a fundamental piece of what we're trying to accomplish," Kelly said.
"Everybody says they want higher standards, and everybody says they want accountability. This is how you can do it." Board approves money for test Continued from Page 1 day, board members repeated their support for the testing and accountability system and their belief that the changes are the improvements that teachers, parents and test experts have been demanding. "We have found ways to make the assessment system even better than it was before," Education Commissioner Bill Cody said. The test has been under attack in the General Assembly; some legislators want to scrap it altogether and others want to give the Education Department less money than requested. The state budget approved by the House yesterday would appropriate only $5 million a year for the test, ti a1- sL A ASSOCIATED PRESS Reps.
Katie Stlne, R-Fort Thomas, and Mark Treesh, R-Philpot, center, talked with Rep. Harry Moberly D-Richmond, yesterday as Stine tried to move the abortion bill she is sponsoring out of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee and onto the House floor. nmnr 01 formation about abortion and alternatives to it. Stine told the panel that three studies by the Legislative Research Commission showed that the bill would cost the state nothing. Addressing another criticism, she said the bill wouldn't require women to make two trips to Louisville or Lexington first to be told about abortion and then to have the procedure because the initial visit could be performed by a doctor, nurse or social worker where the women live.
Rep. Charles Geveden, D-Wickliffe, who has voted against such legislation in the past, asked Stine if, by increasing the number of women who opt not to have abortions, the bill would force the state to spend more Medicaid money on prenatal care, childbirth and other medical ex- MM Abortion bill no longer stuck Continued from Page 1 Democratic side, other than that the bill would get a vote in Moberly's committee. Yesterday morning, Ford and other House Republicans were busy trying to persuade Moberly to hold a vote on the measure even though it hadn't been posted in that committee for three days, as required by House rules, or to ask Stumbo to waive his deadline. "No, I'm not going to ask the floor leader to do that," Moberly told Ford. "But you can ask the floor leader, and if he wants to, he will." Both Ford and Stine said they think the bill would pass Moberly's committee if a vote is taken.
Democrats said a caucus vote to move the bill to the House floor would be a toss-up. "It's pretty close I expect very close," Bowling said. Margie Montgomery, executive director of Kentucky Right to Life, said last night that she is concerned that a caucus vote may go against abortion foes because it is held in secret. "If they vote on the House floor (on whether to consider the bill), I know we'd win, but if they vote in secret, I don't know what they'll do," she said. Moberly's committee took up the bill for the first time yesterday morning, hearing testimony about how it would affect the state budget.
It would require women to receive counseling from a doctor, nurse or social worker at least 24 hours before having an abortion. It also requires that the state print and distribute in- Nobody beats us on quality! Get the 1 monitored security system that 25 million people rely on worldwide. Nobody beats us on price! ADT will not be undersold! We promise to beat any competitor's written installation price. Guaranteed! penses. Stine said that there might be some impact on Medicaid but that it shouldn't be considered because it couldn't be determined.
She also said abortion clinics would bear the cost of printing the information about abortion. But Beth Wilson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project, testified that such legislation has cost other states more than $100,000. She acknowledged that the bill doesn't require women to go to Louisville or Lexington twice, but she said that in reality women in rural areas would often have to do that because federal law doesn't allow them to get free abortion information at local health departments that receive Medicaid funds. Information for this story was also gathered by staff writer Robert T. Garrett.
Save $100 I REGIONAL BRIEFS COMPILED FROM AP AND STAFF DISPATCHES Railroad car leaks gas in E'town ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. A tanker train car leaking an unknown gas forced at least 30 Elizabethtown residents out of their homes last night, police said. The leak was reported about 7:30 p.m., according to an officer, who asked not to be identified. The car was parked on a track about a mile from the center of town, the officer said. The gas was giving off an odor, he said.
At least five city streets were evacuated, and the Red Cross set up a shelter. Cleanup crews and CSX Transportation officials were at the scene. No other details were available. Firms lose suit over mining P1KEVTLLE, Ky. A federal jury has awarded $62,000 to a Perry County man for pollution and unreclaimed mine works left on his property nearly two decades ago.
The U.S. District Court jury found Elmer Whitaker and his former coal companies, Whitaker Coal Co. and Ray Coal liable for rendering the property at Jeff in Perry County useless. It awarded William K. Bays, a retired dentist who now lives in Georgia, the total assessed value of the property.
Whitaker's attorney, Pete Gullett of Hazard, said yesterday he had not decided whether to appeal the March 7 verdict. Joe Childers of Lexington, Bays' attorney, said that when Ray Coal finished surface and deep mining the property in 1978, it left dilapidated buildings, abandoned oil cans, and small amounts of cancer-causing PCBs and other pollutants. Bays sued in 1988, but the case was delayed because of several changes in judges. Childers said the companies have since spent about $80,000 under the state Superfund program cleaning up the site. Bones found at Rogers family farm BEATTYVILLE, Ky.
Two bone fragments were discovered yesterday at a farm owned by the family of suspected cross-country serial killer Glen Rogers, but officials cautioned they might belong to a body already found there. State police said the fragments were found near the spot where police discovered the decomposed body of Rogers' former roommate, Mark Peters, 73, of Hamilton, Ohio. Police said it will take some study to tell whether those fragments came from Peters. State police, the FBI and the Kentucky National Guard have been combing the 40-acre Lee County farm, since Monday. Rogers, 33, is fighting extradition to Florida, where he is charged with first-degree murder, robbery with a weapon and grand theft of a motor vehicle.
He is also suspected in the slayings of three women in three other states. Inmates escape from Whitley jail WILLIAMSBURG, Ky. Two men awaiting trial in separate homicide cases escaped yesterday from the Whitley County Jail. Teddy Hurst, 28, and Bryan Partin, 34, both of Frakes near the Bell-Whitley County line, overpowered two deputy jailers and left them locked in a cell, Jailer Mike Patrick said. The pair fled around 3:30 a.m.
in a two-door 1988 Cavalier that belonged to one of the deputies. Hurst was arrested last year and charged in connection with the November 1991 shooting death of Dale Gaddis, 40, of Knoxville, Tenn. Partin was awaiting trial for murder in the October 1995 shooting death of Gary Gilley, 40, of Frakes. Hurst was described as 6 feet tall, about 175 pounds, with short brown hair and green eyes. Partin is 5-foot-10, 150 pounds, with medium-length brown hair, green eyes, a beard and mustache.
Senate OKs privatizing corporation WASHINGTON The Senate approved legislation yesterday to privatize the U.S. Enrichment the government entity that runs the uranium-enrichment plant at Paducah. The measure was included in an omnibus spending bill. Privatization legislation was approved last year by Congress, but it was in the balanced-budget bill vetoed by President Clinton. Sen.
Wendell Ford, who has been pushing for privatization as the best hope of saving the Paducah plant, called yesterday's action "clearly a victory for the employees at Paducah and the area's local economy." Robbery suspect caught in Hawaii HONOLULU A woman wanted for robbery in Kentucky was captured Monday night by FBI agents in Hawaii. Maurica Brown was arrested without incident at a Waipahu shopping center, agent John Schiman said. Brown, 21, was wanted in Jefferson County to face a second-degree robbery charge. Brown has been charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, Schiman said. Collins will have high-profile lawyer COVINGTON, Ky.
The brother of famed O.J. Simpson attorney Alan Dershowitz will take on the case of Dr. Bill Collins as he continues to fight charges of conspiring to extort money in exchange for state contracts. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled Monday that Collins, the husband of former Gov.
Martha Layne Collins, must serve his term of five years and three months in prison. The Collins family may ask the three-member appellate panel to reconsider its decision; ask the full appellate court to hear the case; or ask the U.S. Supreme Court to rule. New York attorney Nathan Dershowitz, 53, would handle the appeals because Frank Haddad, the Louisville lawyer who represented Collins during his trial in 1993, died last year. 6 to join Journalism Hall of Fame LEXINGTON, Ky.
Two pioneer black journalists, two community newspaper leaders, a former Kentucky governor and the matriarch of a state media empire have been selected for induction into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. The inductees are: Betty J. Berryman, publisher and executive vice president of The Winchester Sun. She was the first woman president of the Kentucky Press Association. The late Mary Caperton Bingham, matriarch of the Bingham family, which owned The Courier-Journal, The Louisville Times, WHAS Inc.
and other community properties. Max Heath, vice president and executive editor of Landmark Community Newspapers, based in Shelbyville. He is a former president of KPA and a leader in the National Newspaper Association. The late Keen Johnson, governor of Kentucky in 1939-43 and co-publisher of The Richmond Daily Register. He also published weekly newspapers and was vice president of the KPA The late Daniel Rudd, who was born a slave in Bardstown.
He was publisher of The American Catholic Tribune and helped establish the Catholic Press Association and the Afro-American Press Association. William E. Summers III of Louisville, a leader in the broadcast industry and the first black in the United States to manage a radio station. He began his career with The Louisville Defender newspaper, became a sports announcer for WLOU radio in Louisville and purchased the station in 1971. This offer covers standard installation of a Satewatch Plus system.
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