Special Reports

Lottery Not Paying Off For Florida Education

MIAMI (CBS4) ― Broward mom Kathy Hargreaves worries about her daughters' public school education.

For years she's heard about the $18-billion dollars in lottery money that was supposed to improve Florida's education system. But with local schools forced to slash budgets, lay off staff, eliminate special programs and class trips, she questions if the lottery's billions are really being spent like voters intended.

"Where is it really going is my question, you know what's really happening with that money they said was going towards education," wonders Hargreaves.

When the lottery was approved by voters in 1986, it was to "Enable the people of the state to benefit from significant additional monies for education."

According to the Florida Lottery Department, the games have generated $9.1 billion in direct aid to schools districts statewide, including some $2.2-billion for Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe county schools.

Click Here to see how the Florida Lottery is funding education.

But Hargreaves doesn't trust how the lottery money is being spent and wonders why more money isn't going directly into the states' schools.

" I do think it is a scam that they aren't putting it towards education like they said they were going to," said Hargreaves.

Some $2 billion has already gone directly to local college students from the lottery's "Bright Futures" scholarship program including some $442-million for South Florida college students; about 80,000 scholarships have been awarded in South Florida alone.

Recent Killian High School graduate David Aynat says he hasn't seen the benefits of the lottery inside the local classrooms he's attended.

The soon-to-be college freshman says "teachers had to buy their own paper, they had to add the incentive to students, they would give extra credit if you brought in paper. It's just creating bad habits, it's not the way education should be"

So what happened?

Critics say rather than using the lottery to enhance and improve education, state lawmakers used the money for just basic funding.

"To put it in very simple laymen's terms, new dollars came in but they took the money they were getting before and used it for something else. They took from one place and gave it to another. It matters not what the people of Florida wanted when they supported the lottery," said Florida Representative Julio Robaina.

Robaina points out there's still a movement statewide to allow public school funds to be used for private schools, with conservative lawmakers pushing a constitutional amendment scheduled for state-wide vote later this fall. Robaina says opponents of public education are unwilling to mandate that public education be fully funded in the first place, independent of the lottery.

"Kids and schools are suffering, there's no new dollars and the lottery is not bringing home the money," said Robaina.

So what's the answer to better funding local schools?

One possibility would be a bill requiring state lawmakers to pass an adequate education budget independent of using lottery money. But some local lawmakers say that's not about to happen.

Another option would be a state-wide constitutional amendment which would mandate a fully fund education without Lottery Money; the amendment would also state that lottery funds would be used to "Enable the people of the state to benefit from significant additional monies for education" as it was originally approved by Florida voters some 20 years ago.

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