SALEM - State Lottery Director Brenda Rocklin has been named as the temporary head of SAIF Corp., the troubled state-owned workers' compensation insurer that's the target of a ballot measure seeking to abolish it.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski said Rocklin will review all operations of the public company and recommend any changes needed to "to make SAIF more accountable to the public and its elected officials."

Rocklin will replace Acting SAIF President Cecil Tibbetts, who assumed the top post after former president Kathy Keene left the company in December.

Keene resigned in the wake of disclosures that SAIF had paid former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's consulting firm more than $1 million - at times as much as $40,000 a month - with little documentation of what he did in return.

A state ethics panel is investigating a related complaint by state Sen. Vicki Walker that SAIF failed to report all of its lobbying expenses as required by law.

The lobbying records are a key component in a court case in which a Marion County judge is weighing whether the company should be found in contempt for failing to produce all the public records that he had ordered it to disclose.

The company also has been hurt by allegations by a former SAIF manager that he was told by bosses to destroy or conceal records to keep them from competitors.

Those claims are involved in the contempt case and are the subject of a separate police probe into whether criminal laws against destroying or hiding public records were violated.

Walker, a Eugene Democrat and persistent SAIF critic, praised the Democratic governor's selection of Rocklin.

"I think it's a good move. From what I've seen her do at the Lottery Commission, I think she can bring credibility back to SAIF," Walker said.

House Speaker Karen Minnis, a Republican, said Kulongoski made a good move.

"While SAIF does an outstanding job of providing low-cost workers compensation insurance, it clearly has had management problems," Minnis said. "Brenda Rocklin is indeed an agent of change and is a good choice to make SAIF more accountable."

The group campainging to pass the ballot measure, Oregonians for Accountability, had a more negative response, saying it was "pleased to hear the governor finally acknowledge the corruption and lack of accountability" at SAIF.

"However, his announcement today does nothing to address the conditions at the agency that allowed this corruption to exist," said a statement released by an organization that has been funded largely by Liberty Northwest, SAIF's main competitor.

Rocklin is a former Oregon assistant attorney general who worked under Kulongoski when he was attorney general in the 1990s. The SAIF assignment will be the second time Kulongoski has turned to her for help with a troubled agency.

She was named interim Lottery chief in late 2002 by outgoing Gov. John Kitzhaber, with Kulongoski's backing, and permanently appointed to the post by Kulongoski soon after he took office in January 2003.

Rocklin stepped into that job after the agency's director quit following a state audit suggesting $750,000 in spending was excessive, including deluxe travel arrangements, gifts and other perks for employees.

An audit last fall said operating costs had been pared by $500,000 under Rocklin.

Rocklin has some familiarity with SAIF; she was a counsel to the insurer for a year in the mid-1990s.