Schools Getting Their Share of the Lottery--$272 Million

The state controller’s office Friday began giving public schools their initial gift of $272 million from state lottery proceeds.

Spokesmen for the office said checks mailed to school districts, as well as to university and college systems, should arrive by Monday. The checks amount basically to $50.68 for each of California’s 5.5 million students in 1,100 school districts and three college systems.

The revenue is education’s 34% share of $800 million in first-quarter lottery revenue, from the Oct. 3 kickoff of the games to the end of 1985.

The distribution formula will give kindergarten through 12th-grade schools $220.32 million; community colleges, $32.64 million; the California State University system, $12.24 million, and the University of California, $6.8 million.

State schools chief Bill Honig said the money, which can be used only for instructional purposes, amounts only to a small percentage of educational budgets.

“This money is a thin layer of support on top of the resources parents and educators have had to fight for,” Honig said. “We should remember that this is a tiny fraction of the roughly $3,400 per pupil raised by taxes and other public monies.

“The extra $50 will help bring California up to the average spent nationwide . . . but we should remember that California still lags far behind the major industrial states.”

Honig also warned schools not to make any long-term plans based on lottery money.

“This is the same as not counting your chickens until they are hatched. The lottery is too young for us to have a firm idea of how sales will run in the next few years,” he said.