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Highlands Today

Fall Off In Lottery Sales Cuts Education Funding

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: February 17, 2009

SEBRING - When the Highlands County School District made its budget projections in July 2008, it was estimating to receive nearly $950,000 from the Florida Lottery revenue for this school year.

Turns out the money they will actually receive is almost $300,000 less.

Highlands' schools will get about $692,085 in lottery funds this fiscal year. The district's 2004-05 budget showed projected lottery proceeds of $1.02 million or 2 percent of the district's total general fund revenue.

This drop in revenue does not have a major impact on the school budget, Deputy Superintendent of Business Operations Mike Averyt said. The lottery revenue is a small part of the school budget, he added.

The Florida Lottery transferred more than $1 billion statewide to education in 2007-08.

The lottery announces billions and billions of dollars going to education, but that's since 1988 when the lottery started, Averyt said. Many people believe all that money is coming in one year.

Also, the lottery funds come with stipulations.

For instance, this year, the district will have to use $399,036 on schools that have good accountability grades, leaving only $293,049 to use as it sees fit.

The majority of the district's discretionary lottery funds paid for psychologist/social workers to provide professional services to students, according to the School Board of Highlands County's lottery report for July 1 through December 2008.

The lottery was never intended to fund education, but to supplement it, Averyt said. As soon as the lottery started, the district's state funding was reduced in relation to the lottery revenue, so the district actually received no additional funds.
Florida Lottery sales are down 7.7 percent, since the start of the fiscal year on July 1, compared to last year, Florida Lottery Public Affairs Specialist Shelly Safford said Monday. The drop is primarily due to reduced scratch-off game ticket sales.

The gap, between the revenue fall off this year and last year's proceeds, has been getting smaller and smaller with the addition of Powerball, she said. Also, a new price-level ($3) for a scratch-off game has been introduced with the hopes of increasing lottery revenue.

"We are just trying to introduce some new things to get the scratch-off numbers back up to where they should be," Safford said.

The state's Revenue Estimating Conference in July reported that lottery sales were down due to economic conditions, including high gas prices.

The conference reduced expected lottery funding to the educational trust funds from previous projections by $75 million in 2008-09 and $54.8 million in 2009-10.

In addition to the public schools, lottery funds also go to community colleges, state universities, Bright Futures Scholarships and school construction bonds.

Highlands Today reporter Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com

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