How the California Lottery's financial contribution benefits education

September 07, 2000

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Luv2Win: What are the primary areas where lottery funds are allocated?

David Gordon: In our district they are allocated in two main portions. We use about half for employee stipends - bonuses, if you will - to recognize our employees. The rest of the money is used for instructional improvement priorities, such as making sure we have enough textbooks or other materials, and music programs or art programs. We have a huge, long list of important priorities which are approved by our board. Technology is another area where we use a lot of lottery money.

Chase: Which employees are eligible for lottery stipends?

David Gordon: In our district, all permanent employees. The top ten or so do not get a lottery stipend.

Darva: How much does the lottery contribute to the Elk Grove budget?

David Gordon: Our lottery income for this past year was $3.3 million. And generally, it's approximately 2% of the total public education budget for California schools. Our total (what we're expecting for this year) is $6.2 million. It figures out to be just under 2% of our total budget, and that's the rule that applies to the rest of the schools statewide.

Apple4teacher: Does the income-per-student from the lottery in anyway effect the money the government gives the schools based on attendance?

David Gordon: No, it's over and above what comes in the regular state budget for education. This is over and above that. So, if there's more lottery money, that's to the good - nobody deducts. On the other hand, if there's less lottery money, no one makes up the difference.

Keno: How much of the lottery money goes back as taxes?

David Gordon: The lottery is not tax money. It's independent of any taxes. It's there to supplement. It entirely depends upon sales.

Teacher: What percent of the lottery money goes to furnishing school texts and teachers salaries?

David Gordon: In our district, none of it goes to teacher salaries for the reason I mentioned earlier. If you budget for salaries and the lottery goes down, you're not able to keep paying salaries. In terms of textbooks, we use a large amount of the lottery money for textbooks. Generally speaking, we use each year one to two million dollars for textbooks. Our board of education is absolutely insistent that no child be without a textbook.

PaintedConure: Are there any statistics that show how much of the lottery money goes to educating non-English speaking students and, if so, what are the percentages?

David Gordon: I don't have any information on that. We use it for programmatic priorities which, in some cases, touch on non-English speaking students, but it's hard to separate that out. The other point to be made is we also make a lot of categorical money for those purposes, so the lottery money gets to fill in the gaps for things we don't get to do.

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