Is The Lottery Really Helping Oklahoma Education?

Amy Lester, Oklahoma Impact Team

OKLAHOMA CITY-- You've seen the commercials from the Lottery Commission, implying school districts use lottery money to buy new buses, textbooks and computers. But, we found out, that's not really the case.

"The commercials are terribly misleading," said Terry Simpson, Superintendent of Guthrie Schools. "The lottery commercials about what's been bought and so forth, it's not true here."

Simpson and other administrators explain, the lottery money Guthrie receives, $138,129 last year, goes directly to support a teacher pay raise. The legislature earmarked lottery funds for that purpose, several years ago. School districts receive lottery money lumped together with the rest of their state aid, not in a separate check.

"Those raises have to be paid for every year so basically that source of revenue has gone to that ever since the raises were given," said Dennis Schulz, Assistant Superintendent, Guthrie Schools.

The legislature passed a bill back in 2006, putting the entire amount of appropriated lottery money for common education toward a one time $3,000 teacher pay raise. At the time, that was $52.9 million dollars. Interestingly enough, the lottery came in $21.8 million short, that year. Since then, K-12 has received roughly $30 million a year, not even close to what was earmarked for the raise.

Read the pay raise bill

"Since that was what the first money was used for, that's the way it's all used now," said Rep. Jerry McPeak, Democrat from Warner. "It was supposed to be over and above but it isn't, it just simply is not."

Representative McPeak did not vote for the bill. So, to find out more about how this happened, we went to one of the bill's authors, former Senator Johnnie Crutchfield.

"I wouldn't change it, if I could go back and redo it, I'd still be supporting the same thing," said Crutchfield.

Crutchfield says he always thought of lottery money as one piece of the pie, the legislature had to work with, when it came to education. He insists, if the lottery money was not earmarked for the raise, the raise would not have ever happened, and Oklahoma would be losing more teachers to higher paying states.

"If someone feels that they were lied to, misled or whatever, I would say, I'm sorry you feel that way," said Crutchfield. "I feel like it stayed within the guidelines of what it was supposed to be used for."

While no one we talked to questions the need for the raise, everyone said they thought the lottery money would be used as discretionary funds, allowing districts to spend money, as they choose. Having that extra money now, could make a difference for districts that are struggling during these tough economic times.

"We wish it wasn't something obligated, certainly would help us right now," said Terry Simpson, Guthrie Schools Superintendent.

How the Lottery Money is Distributed

You may not realize, only 35% of total lottery revenues go to education...the rest goes toward prizes and administrative costs. Of that 35%, common education (K-12) and higher education receive 45% each. The remaining 10% is split between the school consolidation fund and teachers' retirement.

"I'm disappointed in actually the percentages that are dealt out to public schools," said voter, Cassie Prince. "I just feel that we need to put more of the percentage of our money into public education."

The Lottery Commission wants to remove profit restrictions and make prizes larger, saying that will increase lottery sales.

Read case studies from the Lottery Commission

Former Governor Henry supports the Commission's suggestion and stands by the fact that the lottery is contributing to education, even though it's not as much as originally predicted.

Read Henry's statement

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