Ticket sales for lotteries like last week’s record-breaking $640 million Mega Millions jackpot are meant to fuel more than gamblers’ dreams of life-altering wealth. California schools will see more than $100 million from this latest case of lotto fever.
Last fiscal year California’s public schools, colleges and universities got just over $1.1 billion from lottery ticket sales, according to a report from the California State Lottery. Public schools and community colleges in San Diego County received nearly $85 million.
That meant just over $15 million for San Diego Unified, or about 1.5 percent of the district’s overall budget. Schools are required to spend a portion of lottery revenues on instructional materials like textbooks. At San Diego Unified the remaining money goes into the general fund.
Without a drastic change to the state’s proposed budget for next year that general fund is expected to take a hit of more than $120 million –- a deficit that will remain largely unchanged by the recent Mega Millions ticket-buying craze.
