RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – With teachers getting ready to rally for better pay and school improvements on May 16, the CBS 17 Answer Desk looks at where the money generated by the North Carolina Education Lottery fits into school funding.
Last fiscal year, records show the North Carolina Education lottery took in $622.5 million and viewer Guy Crawford wants to know how is that allocated?
In asking his question about spending, Crawford said, “We should not have teachers stepping out of the classroom asking for more money when we have a lottery system making millions.”
So, let’s find out where those millions go.
Here’s the breakdown.
Research by CBS 17 indicates less than 1 percent of revenue raised by lottery sales was spent on salaries and benefits of lottery employees.
The rest went to education, but the lottery doesn’t decide how that money that money is spent.
The law says the General Assembly makes those decisions.
Each year in the state budget, the legislature can adjust which programs receive funds raised by the lottery.
And not every county gets the same amount of lottery revenue.
That too varies.
For purposes of this explanation, we’ll use Wake County’s breakdowns.
Last fiscal year, Wake County received a total of $57,148,834 from the lottery.
It was broken down into five categories.
- $38,459,168 for non-instructional support which includes the costs of support staff such as office assistants, custodians and substitute teachers
- $10,800,464 for school construction
- $3,517,030 for college scholarships based on financial need
- $3,198,172 for the prekindergarten program which serves four-year-old children who are at risk of falling behind their peers
- $1,173,999 for financial aid grants through the UNC Need-Based Grant Program.
Last fiscal year, Wake County’s total school budget was $1.5 billion so you can see that $57 million in funds just a small part of that budget.
And it’s the same for other counties.
The education lottery money makes up just a small fraction of school funding here in the state.
If you’d like to look up how much money your county’s public schools received from the lottery last fiscal year, use this link.
The state board of education has listings of lottery allocations to local school districts going back to 2006.
Use this link to access those spreadsheets.