Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 8, 1995 TAG: 9504100013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the General Assembly's two-day "veto session" this week, each side accused the other of playing shell games with lottery proceeds. In votes that mostly broke along partisan lines, the majority Democrats held firm (as expected) to their plan for a law that dedicates lottery proceeds to state aid for local schools. Republican Gov. George Allen lost (again, as expected) his renewed proposal to send lottery proceeds to localities for whatever purposes they wished - but with the hope that the issue will turn up winning numbers for GOP legislative majorities after the November elections.
Perhaps a brief '87 retrospective is in order.
First, a shell game, in a manner of speaking, is what was intended from the start: The lottery was to be a means by which money could be moved from nutshell to nutshell as circumstances warranted.
To this day, many Virginians believe a commitment was made, when the lottery question went to statewide referendum in November 1987, that the proceeds would go exclusively to public education. Others, however, say they voted in favor of a lottery only because they assumed the money would be "returned" to the localities.
In fact, no such commitments ever were made. Nearly half the states with lotteries designated the proceeds for specific purposes, but Virginia was not among them.
The lottery law - passed before the '87 referendum - clearly said that money would go into the state's general fund, there to be used for whatever purposes governors and legislators deemed necessary. The ballot question was simply: ``Shall the 1987 Act of the General Assembly which establishes a state-operated lottery become effective in Virginia?''
In campaigning for the lottery, many proponents couched it as ``a painless way to raise money for education.'' Some also pitched it as a way to avoid future tax increases, and even hinted that the proceeds might be used to cut taxes. But if promises were made about how the money was to be spent, they were made without much fanfare and by people in no position to guarantee they could be kept. The dominant issue throughout the lottery debate was not use of the proceeds, but rather the morality of state-sponsored gambling.
The lottery was up and running by mid-'88. As the money started rolling in, many local-governing bodies passed resolutions urging the state to share the proceeds with them. But then-Gov. Gerald Baliles requested, and the 1989 General Assembly agreed, that lottery proceeds from the '88-'89 fiscal year be earmarked for higher-education, parks and mental-health capital-improvement projects. Virginia ought not depend on lottery money for routine operating appropriations, Baliles warned, because the lottery was an unreliable source of funds.
Actually, the lottery has proved darned reliable: Annual revenues have risen from $140 million to $156 million to $287 million to $290 million to $297 million to $303 million.
Lottery proceeds paid for $127 million worth of capital outlay. But by 1990, the state had a recession-related fiscal crisis on its hand. Urged on by both outgoing Gov. Baliles and incoming Gov. Douglas Wilder, lawmakers began using lottery proceeds for general operations, to help avoid a tax increase, and they've remained unearmarked ever since.
by CNB