South By North Strategies, Ltd.

A new report from the Education and Law Project of the North Carolina Justice Center documents how the proceeds of the North Carolina Education Lottery are not being used to supplement public education budgets. From the report …

During the debate around the creation of the North Carolina Education Lottery in 2005, critics from across the political spectrum predicted that the state would eventually back off of its promises that lottery funds would be used to enhance rather than replace existing education funds.The reality of what has happened in the years since is worse than what critics predicted: North Carolina spent less on K‐12 education in the 2010‐11 school year than it did in the last school year before the lottery came into existence, even without accounting for inflation or increases in the student population….
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The lottery supports vital education programs,including reduced class size in early grades, academic prekindergarten programs, school construction, and scholarships for needy college and university students. But, rather than using lottery proceeds to supplement the state’s funding for these programs and the larger public school system, North Carolina’s legislative leaders have increasingly relied on the lottery to cover up cuts to education.
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The lottery did give a bump to spending on education in the early years of its existence during the 2007‐2008 and 2008‐2009 school years. However, that increase has disappeared completely, and spending on K‐12 educaion is now below what it was when the lottery began.