GREENSBORO, N.C. — You heard about Guilford County Schools asking for money or device donations for 5,200 students and you asked:
“What about those devices the district ordered”?
The answer is, they don't come in until late November.
Then you asked, “What about the education lottery money”?
That answer will take a little longer.
For every $1 ticket sold, 30-cents goes to schools. That 30% of all lottery revenue added up to $709 million for schools. According to NCDPI, Even if the lottery gave 100% of it's revenue to schools, it would only cover 19% of the state's total budget for K-12 public schools.
While the $709 million is a lot of money, it's divided up between all 100 counties. The NCEL has an interactive map where you can pick out your county and see how much money your community schools received.
Let's take Guilford County. The lottery supplied the district with $31 million but the district doesn't get to decide where that money goes, state lawmakers do.
The NC Education Lottery page shows you where that money went.
The bulk of it was for non-instructional support like office assistants, custodians, substitute teachers. Also included is money for Pre-K, College Scholarships, Financial Aid, School Construction and School provided transportation. Technology is not part of it.
While $31 million is a lot of money, it's a small amount when you see the GCS budget last year was $780 million.