Florida Lottery Funding for Education - Case Study Example

Florida Lottery Funding for Education Introduction Lotteries have been around for centuries especially in the American and British societies. Conservative-minded individuals who saw it like a vice and signs of laziness frowned upon the practice of lottery. Parliaments, though, saw an opportunity to pass legislation to legalize the lottery system in a bid to fund learning institutions and public works. This included infrastructure such as roads and bridges (The Florida Lottery 15). This paper looks into the move by the state of Florida in 1986 to petition its voters to legalize gambling in the form of a lottery. This sought to provide funding for education and the subsequent appeal for legalization of casinos to fund education for schools. The move has undergone changes since its initial launch with both beneficial and retrogressive realities. It is better to start the examination with how the lottery system works before delving into the benefits. It is imperative that the lottery system has created subsequent criticisms as a result of subversion of the original idea with a piece of point of view on what should be done to bring it back on track. How Lotteries Work A Lottery is actually a gambling game that is being run by the State in the context of United States of America. It enjoys Government monopoly. Various lottery games played are for example; instantaneous win by scratch games, picking three, or four numbers to match the winning number and a range of daily games. A grand form of lottery is the Lotto promising biggest rewards. It is played by picking correct six numbers from a pool of balls numbered from one to fifty. The sum that the player puts at stake is usually a relatively small amount compared to other gambling games (brochures on How to Play the Florida Lottery Games 15). It is estimated that the chance of winning is 1 in every 12 million participants. Because it’s a Government run enterprise, the lottery usually has the aim of supplementing revenue from the public just as taxes do. Thus, it is geared towards obtaining money to be used for public good. For continuous backing and popularity, a lottery project must transparently show how the proceeds are spent. The most approved kind of spending is in education sector. The lottery is also seen as a tapping mechanism for money that could have gone into criminal gambling establishments (Stark 22). The money from a lottery program is appropriated as follows: payment to the prize winners, commissions and fees to vendors of the tickets, administrative expenses, the vendor gaming fees, and the rest to the public good that the government has in its plans. Florida Lotto Florida launched its lottery program in January 1988 after a successful constitutional amendment that was voted for by the state’s voters in 1986 general elections. This new lottery program was aimed at enhancing education in the state through the Education Enhancement Trust Fund. Participants in the game are required to be of the minimum age of 18.The first game offering was the scratch-off game and since then, several games have been added to its portfolio (Florida Lottery Secretarys Recognition of Creativity in Teaching 19). It has introduced higher price points, increased the volume of traditional games and seasonal promotional games. These games are as follows; The Powerball. Cash 3. Florida Lotto. Play 4. Mega Money. Lucky Lines. Fantasy 5. Mega Millions. The lottery apart from boosting education in the state has remarkably become a successful business enterprise. Florida Lottery Gains in Funding Education The State of Florida has both the public and private educational institutions. For the private sector, the funding of its activities solely falls in the hands of the proprietors. The public ones depend on the government allocation to fund its construction of new classrooms, facilities, activities among other important projects. The public system of education thus starts all the way from kindergarten all the way to University level. The states government has a big responsibility in ensuring funding for the system is adequately catered for. The government through its initiatives saw the opportunity to supplement its budgetary estimates through the issuing of lottery tickets. In this regard, the government would channel the money via the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund under the watch of the Department of Education. Florida Legislature usually determines the expenditure from the lottery money and it goes to K-12 Schools, support bright but needy students to study at college level, and roll out programs within state colleges in Florida. The success story of the lottery program since its inception in 1988 has enabled more than half a million high school students to attend tertiary level institutions. These students are incorporated into the Bright Futures program based on merit and neediness to secure scholarships to either public or private college or University within the state of Florida. The eligibility to the scholarship program is mainly acquired while the student is still in high school, and if the student chooses to study outside Florida, the scholarship is canceled. In order to maintain the support accorded, the G.P.A. plus academic load through credit hours have to be satisfactory as per prescribed criteria. The downsides of the lottery The Florida lotto has not measured up to its inception mission. Critics claim that instead of supplementary role the money has supplanted the government allocation to the education sector. The original idea had been to plug the holes that the budget from government failed to fill. The government officials have taken advantage of the generous revenue by diverting the allocations from the exchequer coffers to other projects resulting in shortchanging of the education sector. The funding to schools especially in K-12 program has experienced substantial drop in state funding. The money is instead channeled towards scholarships for college students, the other portion to institutions of higher learning and projects in constructing more schools. The communities are left to shoulder the deficit through increased property taxes. Another negative evaluation of the lottery has been that the money is used to sustain the lottery games in terms of prizes, promotional activities and commissions given to the vendors. The competition to draw participants into the lottery has since raised the stakes. This means that the jackpot allocation from total revenue is revised upwards leaving a meager percentage going to the education sector. For example, if revenue gotten from a lottery had been $20 million and fifty percent could have gone to education that meant $10 million dollars. In the case of raised jackpot prize that allocation to education can reduce to even four million dollars. The above argument relates to the notion also that the state can spread its net more to capture more players by instituting lotteries that favor instant gratification plus other games that carry propensity to addiction. The original objective of the games has been surpassed by thirst for more money from the public. The lottery link to education funding has even changed the perception of many citizens. This has been to an extent that any appeal to increase normal tax regimes or authorizing bond in order to add revenue stream to the school system is met with a lot of resistance. The argument would be that the lottery revenue suffices. Conclusion The lottery system indeed has a significant contribution to the society’s success in terms of funding of important projects. These can be community projects, road construction, education sector funding, and building of churches among others. The funds must be used prudently and with a priority focus always. The initial objective of Florida lottery was to enhance education sector, but the priority has been given a raw deal in the progressive years. The money has since then been used to fund politically favorite projects and other noneducational expenditures (The Florida Lottery and the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund 10). This has negated the primary objective. It is upon the population to take into task the legislators to go back to the drawing board and abide by the original plan. In this regard, they should amend the law of the land by legalizing the casinos and incorporation of Lotto in education supplementary and enhancement role. This path of active reversion of the state of affairs is nevertheless an uphill task because the program has been infiltrated by vested interest groups. It is synonymous to the politics of free health care system in the sense that the measure for the public good can draw in political undertones to the detriment of the disadvantaged in the society. Works Cited A Review of Lottery Funding for Education. Tallahassee: The Committee, 1996. Print. [brochures on How to Play the Florida Lottery Games]. Tallahassee, Fla.: Florida Dept. of the Lottery, 2001. Print. Florida Lottery Secretarys Recognition of Creativity in Teaching. Tallahassee, Fla.: Florida Lottery, 2000. Print. Stark, Steven D. The Florida Education Lottery: It’s Use As a Substitute for Existing Funds and Its Effects on the Equity of Public School Funding. , 1991. Print. The Florida Lottery and the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund. Tallahassee, Fla.: State of Florida, Dept. of Education, 1990. Print. The Florida Lottery: A Study of the Intent behind Its Passage and Its Effect on Education Appropriation Trends: a Report. Tallahassee, Fla.: Florida Chamber, 1989. Print. Read More