The Virginian-Pilot
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South Hampton Roads schools directly received more than $260 million of Virginia State Lottery profits distributed from 1999 to 2008 for educational purposes, according to data provided by the Virginia Department of Education.
The local amount is in addition to some $2.5 billion in lottery profits given to the state for support of public education. The total amount raised by the lottery for education during the fiscal years 1999 to 2008 was $3.9 billion, according to the Virginia State Lottery.
"We hand it over and it ends up in the hands of the Department of Education," said John Hagerty, a lottery spokesman.
Virginia Beach schools received the most in direct lottery funds of all cities in the commonwealth, followed by Fairfax and Prince William, according to the state Department of Education data.
The lottery has been around since September 1988. It wasn't until 1999 that lottery profits were directed toward K-12 public schools in the state, Hagerty said.
"You buy a $1 lottery ticket and about 56 cents goes back to the players as prizes, and about 32.5 cents goes to public schools," Hagerty said, using a rough estimate. "That's the profit."
"About 5.5 cents goes back to the retailer who sold you the ticket and about 5 cents is the cost of running the lottery," he said.
About $1.4 billion of lottery profits since 1999 has gone directly to schools. The majority of the lottery profits over the years, $2.5 billion, has been put in the state's hands for distribution.
The state's handling of the largest portion of lottery educational funds over the years has some people calling it deceptive or a shell game. State lawmakers bickered over the proper handling of the funds last year.
Victoria Lucente, Chesapeake's assistant superintendent for budget and finance, said lottery profits were intended to be in addition to the state's educational budget. That has not been the case, she said.
"It gets here but not in addition to regular state funding," Lucente said. "It gets here instead of regular state funding."
The general public may not fully understand what the state is doing with the lion's share of lottery profits - or whether profits are going solely to education.
"Are people upset? Those who understand it. Do people understand it? Probably not," Lucente said.
The smaller amount of lottery dollars going directly to school divisions is used at the discretion of those locales. The approximately $260 million distributed in South Hampton Roads since 1999 was divided as follows:
- Virginia Beach, $107.8 million.
- Chesapeake, $56.7 million.
- Norfolk, $55.1 million.
- Portsmouth, $27.4 million.
- Suffolk, $19.3 million.
John Hopkins, (757) 222-5221, john.hopkins@pilotonline.com
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lottery funds
I too would like to know how and why the funds are distributed. I would like to know how the western counties fare in this distribution ( Augusta, Rockingham, Albamarle)
makes sense, sort of
VB, Fairfax and Prince William getting the most makes sense since they are the largest (most populous) localities in Virginia.
Although, Fairfax is the largest, so they should probably get the most, followed by VB then Prince William.
Education funds
I agree, the public should be told how the allocation process works. Also, we should be writing to our state representatives and our Governor and asking them to make good on their promise: We [the public] voted to allow a state lottery based on the proceeds being an ADDITION to the state's budgeted education funds, the benefit being we would have better schools. Lottery profits should not have REPLACED those budgeted funds, that deletes the benefit we were told would come from having a lottery. By rights, we [the public] could vote OUT the lottery based on misuse of funds.
why?
Why would certain areas receive more money than others? The title sort of leads you to believe this would be explained.
Is there any justification
Is there any justification for how the education funds are distributed? If the majority of the lottery plays were in Virginia beach I would accept this is a fair distribution even though I am not aware of the rules the state has set forth for distribution. Please give us (the public) more information prior to making a report that appears to exhibit favortism to a particular area.
A tax on those who are bad at statistics
The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at statistics. It is shameful that the state takes poor people's hard earned money and then pretends to give it back to the public schools.
I guess if we in the public education business (I'm a public high school teacher) were doing our job, the lottery would eventually fail because people would be too smart to play. One can hope!