El Cerrito Schools Cash In On Increased Lottery Sales

EL CERRITO, CA — Thanks to millions of gamblers whose lucky numbers didn’t come up California school districts are finding a little extra money in their bank accounts.

Distributions from the state lottery during the 2019 fiscal year ended in June were up almost 9% over the previous year, with $1.85 billion being paid to the state’s K-12 school districts, community colleges and other educational institutions.

West Contra Costa Unified School District received $6,562,708.12 during fiscal year 2019, an 8.24 percent increase.

A state lottery spokesperson told Patch the increase was in large part attributable to the $1.6 billion Mega Millions jackpot in October of last year, the largest jackpot for a numbers game in US history. Four other Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots ranging from $530 million to $768 million also contributed to increased sales and ultimate school district payments.

Preliminary projections show the lottery expects total sales during fiscal year 2019 to exceed $7.2 billion, with virtually all numbers games and scratcher sales showing increases over the previous year. What’s left over after prize payments and operating expenses is available for schools.

According to the State Controller’s Office, during the 2018-19 school year $1.45 billion in lottery revenue was distributed to more than 1,200 K-12 school districts and charter schools. Community colleges received $275.1 million and other institutions, including the California State University system, University of California, California Youth Authority, Hastings College of Law and the California Maritime Academy, received $115.9 million.

Since the state lottery was approved by voters in 1984 Californians have anted up more than $36 billion in funding for education by hoping to strike it rich. Nearly $29 billion of this has gone to local school districts.

How districts spend the money is pretty much up to them, with a few strings attached. Lottery proceeds can’t be used for “non-instructional” purposes such as school construction, but the money can be spent on teacher salaries and benefits.

In 2000 voters imposed additional spending restrictions when they approved the Cardenas Textbook Act, commonly known as Proposition 20, requiring a portion of the lottery receipts to be spent solely for purchasing instructional materials and establishing a formula for calculating what that amount would be each year.

State law defines instructional materials as those “designed for use by pupils and their teachers as a learning resource and help pupils to acquire facts, skills, or opinions or to develop cognitive processes” and may include, among other things, “textbooks, technology-based materials.” Yet despite the spending restrictions, state education department statistics show the bulk of the lottery distributions are used for salaries and benefits.

— Researched and written by Bob Porterfield, with additional reporting by Bea Karnes