Copyright© 1999 by School Services of California, Inc.
Voters to Decide Whether to Restrict the
Use of New Lottery Funds
With little fanfare or notice, the Legislature passed and Governor Wilson signed Assembly Bill 1453 (Chapter 800/1998). This bill will put an initiative on the March 2000 ballot that, if enacted, would require that 50% of any increase in lottery funding be used by school districts and community colleges for the purchase of instructional materials.
If passed by the electorate, the initiative would require that, beginning in 1998-99, and for every year thereafter, 50% of any increase in lottery funding over the 1997-98 amount would be dedicated for the purchase of instructional materials. The bill and initiative pose some thorny practical, as well as public policy questions. First, the bill does not explain how districts and community colleges are supposed to go back in time to the 1998-99 fiscal year and revise their expenditure of lottery funds. As a practical matter, it is not even reasonable to apply the provisions to the 1999-00 fiscal year, which will be three-quarters over if and when the initiative passes. Further, the restriction on expenditures relates to the change in total lottery dollars, not on a per ADA basis. So it is possible that, given lottery revenues and a district's ADA growth, the district could have more total money, but the same amount on a per ADA basis. However, since the total dollars transferred had increased, 50% of the increased amount would be restricted for instructional materials, and on a per ADA amount, the district would have less unrestricted money.
From a public policy standpoint, the bill revisits the question of whether spending decisions should be made at the state or local level. Also, the bill establishes the dubious proposition that educational policy decisions should be made through the initiative process.
Clearly, as state funding has replaced local funding for education, there has been a shift from local decision making to the imposition of state established restrictions on expenditures. AB 1453 would, through the initiative process, impose restrictions on one of the few remaining sources of discretionary dollars that districts and community colleges receive. With the shift toward restricted funding, the percentage of school district budgets that are truly discretionary becomes ever smaller.
From a practical standpoint, with so much money slated for instructional materials in the next few years, the idea of committing additional dollars to an area that may be already be sufficiently funded may be questionable in light of other competing priorities.
Ultimately, the public will have to decide in March 2000 whether it wants to commit more funding to instructional materials. But more importantly, the public will be making a decision affecting the balance between state and local control over educational policy.
-- Jerry Twomey, CPA