PETER MEDLIN, BYLINE: Last year, the Illinois Lottery set records sales.
Proceeds from Powerball tickets to scratch-offs contributed $731
million to public education. That translates to more than 10% of the
state's funding for school districts. But the receipts don't look nearly
as good this year. With more strict reopening guidelines, sales have
plummeted. And revenue has nosedived nearly $90 million during the
pandemic. Victor Matheson teaches economics at the College of the Holy
Cross in Massachusetts, where he researches sports and the lottery.
VICTOR MATHESON: So we do know, roughly, nationwide, money from
lotteries plus other gambling constitutes about 2% of all state budgets
in the country as a whole. So that's not huge. On the other hand, it's
as much as states generate from, for example, state tobacco taxes, state
alcohol taxes.
MEDLIN: Forty-five states and the District of Columbia run lotteries.
More than half of state lotteries funnel a portion of their revenue into
education. Fourteen completely devote their lottery money to public
schools and scholarships. In fact, in North Carolina they even call it
the North Carolina Education Lottery. Officials tout that more than
10,000 students received free pre-K last year thanks to the lotto.
Schools in that state are now projected to receive about $30 million
less than what they expected from the lottery. The pandemic lottery dip
in places like North Carolina and Illinois wouldn't normally be a huge
loss for public education. But Matheson says since it's happening at the
same time as the recession, it's a small but irreplaceable amount.
MATHESON: The drying up of lottery funding is just symbolic of drying up
of all sorts of other types of revenue sources that state and local
governments and schools all depend on.
MEDLIN: Jeff Craig is superintendent of the West Aurora School District,
located west of Chicago. He's feeling a bit of whiplash. He says, just
before the pandemic, he was planning to add resources.
JEFF CRAIG: All those folders are now in a filing cabinet because it's not something we can talk about for years to come now.
MEDLIN: Now, Craig is trying to figure out how to pay for additional
costs, things like sanitation, protective equipment and ensuring the
emotional health of his students. When trying to calculate it at all,
the losses add up quickly. Michelle Jahr is the chief financial officer
at Rockford Public Schools.
