THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 12, 1995 TAG: 9504110009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
If Virginia had $1 for every time a citizen asked what happened to the lottery money, the state could reduce income taxes 25 percent. OK, that's an exaggeration. But the lottery proceeds have long been treated as the caulk in budget-building: Wherever there's a fund-ing gap, somebody calls for lottery money to fill it. That's a better approach than the General Assembly took this year: It created a gap of some $300 million in the state's $2 billion education budget, then caulked it with lottery funds.
Governor Allen denounced that as the ``shell game'' it is: It doesn't mean one penny more for education. Worse, if for some reason the bottom dropped out of the lottery pot, it would mean $300 million less for education, or $300 million transferred from some other state program, or $300 million more plucked from taxpayers' pockets.
Mr. Allen proposed instead that the lottery profits be returned to localities to spend on education or law enforcement or tax relief, as localities saw fit. He also proposed $15 million worth of cuts - in part from trimming the House of Delegates budget and selling the state yacht - to cover the initial payment of lottery profits to localities.
Democratic assemblymen managed to defer that option without actually having to vote no. They noted that the $300 million would have to come from somewhere if not from the lottery. They noted that $15 million in cuts - part of which they suggested come from selling the State Police helicopter the governor often uses - would more than cover the cost of a juvenile-detention facility Governor Allen planned to pay for with bonds. So they voted to pay for it in cash.
The Democratic critics did not note that if localities needed their share of lottery profits for education, or detention facilities, they could spend it for education or detention facilities, and maybe a tad more efficiently, themselves. They didn't note, either, that if a government (state or local) needs more money down the road, it's politically easier to ask for a tax hike for schools than for anything else.
In the end, however, the lottery money stayed in the education pot.
But it's worth reminding the legislators and the governor alike that in the beginning, lottery money was spent on new buildings for colleges, mental facilities and state parks, not relied on for basic services of government, such as schools. That's the way it should have stayed. by CNB