The state of Florida runs a Powerball lottery for which some of the funds go towards the education in the state. Since its establishment over 30 years ago, the lottery has injected billions into education in Florida and will continue to do so in the years to come. As the lottery marks 30 years of existence, it is perhaps important to look back and examine what it has achieved over the years. Doing so makes it possible to have a clear picture of the contribution that the Florida Powerball lottery has made towards education in the state.
Background
Powerball is not something that is unique to Florida. In fact, it is something that is present in 44 out of the 50 states in the United States as well as the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico (Glum, 2018). Most of them get to keep profits from the lotteries which are then channeled to different projects as approved by their state legislatures. It is perhaps not surprising that some of the states are only too keen to emphasize on this when carrying out their marketing to get customers to buy lottery tickets. For example, the state of California’s tagline of “Schools Win Too” when it launched its lottery in 1984 was a clear indicator of the direction that it intended to take with the subsequent profits. It is worth noting that states have varied uses for the lottery profits that they attain. In Pennsylvania, the proceeds from running the lottery go towards programs for the state’s senior citizens while Rhode Island channels its lottery profits to a general fund that is used for different purposes (Chen, 2018). Therefore, lottery proceeds can serve different purposes.
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Florida
As mentioned earlier on, Florida utilizes profits from its lottery to fund educational programs in the state. In the 30 years since establishment, the lottery has contributed approximately $33 billion to the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund which then channels the funds to the different institutions in the state (Florida Lottery, 2018). Of this amount, about $11.6 billion has gone to public schools throughout the state. On the other hand, colleges and universities in Florida have benefited from a total of $8.4 billion of the lottery proceeds for the past 30 years. A further $5 billion has been pumped to the Bright Futures Scholarship Program which has in turn benefited over 750,000 students by awarding them scholarships to study in Florida’s institutions of higher learning (Florida Trend, 2018). It is also worth noting that the Florida lottery has contributed at least $1 billion towards education in the state for each of the past 16 years, and that is no mean feat (Florida Lottery, 2018). Therefore, it is clear to see that the Florida lottery plays a key role in enhancing education in the state.
While the profits from the lottery go towards education, it is worth noting that not all the money raised is spent that way. The disbursement for the year 2016-17 where less than 30 percent of all the money raised went towards education is just an example of this phenomenon. In any case part of the sales realized is spent on prizes and administrative costs with the remainder going towards education. In 2016-17, the Florida lottery sold tickets worth over $6.15 billion. Of this amount, nearly $4 billion which is about 64% of the sales realized is spent as prize money. Therefore, that means that 64 cents out of each dollar spent on buying tickets in the year 2016-17 went towards prize money. A further 8 percent of the cash was spent to pay vendors and retailers as well as catering for administrative costs. Therefore, a combined 72 percent which translated to about $4.2 billion of the money raised from selling lottery tickets was consumed by prizes, administrative expense, and vendor fees (Polansky, 2018). That left a meager 28 percent which was then channeled towards education.
As earlier noted, the lottery money that is channeled towards education is divided among the various institutions in the state. In 2016-17, $225 million of the nearly $1.7 billion of the lottery money set aside for education was spent on the Bright Futures Scholarship Program. Universities and colleges in the state received $276 million and $273 million respectively (Florida Department of Education, 2017). The remainder of $326 million went towards K-12 schools in Florida (Polansky, 2018). As can be seen, the money was distributed to all levels of education in the state.
One of the concerns raised is the fact that the money for K-12 schools is not often distributed equitably. The distribution system favors the A- rated schools while those that perform poorly receive so little (States News Service, 2002). At the same time, the share of the lottery sales that has been steadily declining over time. At the start of the millennium, the figure stood at 40 percent to mean that 40 cents of each dollar spent in buying a lottery ticket was spent on education in Florida (Sigo, 2002). However, that statistic declined to 32 percent in 2011 (Mayo, 2011). It has since then been on a similar trend, hitting a low of 28 percent in 2017. Apart from that, the Florida lottery has handed out over $53 billion in prizes since 1988 while the figure spent on education during the period is $33 billion (Florida Trend, 2018). Therefore, that seems to be a concern that leaders should address to make the lottery make a better contributor to education in Florida.
References
Chen, G. (2018). Do Lotteries Really Benefit Public Schools? The Answer is Hazy PublicSchoolReview.com. Retrieved from https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/do-lotteries-really-benefit-public-schools-the-answer-is-hazy
Florida Lottery. (2018). Maximizing Revenues for Education. Retrieved from http://www.flalottery.com/education
Florida Trend. (2018). Florida Lottery celebrates latest milestone of $33 billion in contributions to education over 30 years . Retrieved from http://www.floridatrend.com/article/24155/florida-lottery-celebrates-latest-milestone-of-33-billion-in-contributions-to-education-over-30-years
Glum, J. (2018). Powerball Ticket Sales Good for Schools? Lotteriesâ Impact On Education Varies By State. International Business Times . Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/powerball-ticket-sales-good-schools-lotteries-impact-education-varies-state-2259820
Mayo, M. (2011). Where does Florida Lottery money go? A breakdown. The Sun Sentinel . Retrieved from http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-mtblog-2011-05-where_does_florida_lottery_mon-story.html
Polansky, R. (2018). Florida Lottery isn't a jackpot for public education. Retrieved from http://www.nbc-2.com/story/38107458/how-much-money-goes-to-schools-from-the-florida-lottery-jackpot
Sigo, S. (2002), The Bond Buyer , Dec 6, 2002, Vol. 342 (31527), p.3
Florida Department of Education. (2017). 2017-18 Education Appropriations. Retrieved from http://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/7507/urlt/Lotbook.pdf
States News Service, (2002). Published, August 1, 2012
