School Lottery Funds Stir Salary Dispute, Worries

California’s public schools have checks in the mail this week that total $219 million, their first-quarter share from the new state lottery.

But unlike the lottery’s other new million-dollar winners, school officials and teacher union officials have not been jumping for joy. Instead, they have been arguing over who should get the extra money.

“It’s causing a lot of animosity out there,” said Marilyn Bittle, president of the California Teachers Assn., which believes that school boards should add some of the new money to teacher salaries.

“The majority of the boards seem to be dragging their heels,” she said. “They want to decide unilaterally on how it is used” without bargaining with the teachers.

Most school boards want to use the money to buy books, computers and other supplies, rather than for salaries.

In Orange County, some school districts are embroiled in heated disputes with their teachers’ unions over how the lottery money is to be spent. Some unions want substantial percentages of the lottery money to be earmarked for teacher salaries. But most school boards have said they are hesitant to rely on the lottery as a continuing source of revenue and therefore don’t want to use it for salary increases.

The most notable dispute in Orange County over the lottery money is in the Brea-Olinda Unified School District. The teachers in Brea-Olinda last week voted to go on strike Thursday of this week unless the school board can reach agreement with the union by then. A key item in the dispute is the union’s demand that 50% of the district’s lottery money be earmarked for teacher pay. The district’s last offer was for about one-fourth of the lottery money to go into salaries.

In Huntington Beach, the Ocean View (Elementary School District) Teachers Assn. has criticized the school board’s proposal to use some of the lottery money to decrease a deficit in the district’s budget.

“This is unacceptable to many parents and community members who believed they were voting to improve the quality of education when they passed the lottery initiative,” the teachers’ association said in a newsletter to parents.

The association added: “Ocean View teachers would like to see this new income source used to relieve overcrowded classrooms, to hire remedial reading and math teachers, to provide scheduling flexibility in schools where four to six teachers have no planning time and other ways which would directly improve the learning environment for students.”

Fear of Education Cuts

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, education leaders and lobbyists are worried that well-publicized windfalls for schools will result in the governor and the Legislature cutting back on education budgets in the years ahead.

“In the short run, the dollars are welcome. But in the long run, there’s a potential for it (the lottery) to be a real problem,” said Senate Education Committee Chairman Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara). Because schools are getting lottery money, cities, counties and health care centers think they should be getting a bigger share of the state general fund, he said.

“I’m also concerned that the general public thinks schools are rolling in money,” Hart said. “When we have to go to the voters to pass a school bond measure or when we talk in the Legislature about voting more money to improve the schools, it’s going to be a lot harder because of that perception.”

California will spend an average of $3,290 per child in the public schools, according to the state Department of Education. The first-quarter lottery receipts will add $50 per child to that amount.

The state still trails behind the national average in school spending by an estimated $129 per child and spends about $700 less per child than the major industrial states, state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said.

“This will help close the gap, but it won’t do the whole job,” Honig said.

34% Mandated for Education

The lottery proposition passed by the voters in November, 1984, said that at least 34% of the receipts would be used for “instructional purposes” in the public schools, community colleges and state universities. At the end of each quarter, the state Lottery Commission says, it will disburse the money based on the enrollments in the school districts, colleges and universities.

Honig has urged schools to be cautious in spending lottery money for salaries, pointing out that gambling receipts in other lottery states have dropped sharply after the first months.

But just how the lottery money is to be spent is up to each district.

Garden Grove Unified School District, which has 36,500 students, the largest enrollment of Orange County’s 28 school districts, is among the districts that have made no decision yet on how to spend the lottery money.

“We’re aware that the money’s coming in, but the (board) hasn’t made any decisions on it yet,” said Ed Dundon, the district’s superintendent. “We know that the money will be the subject of negotiation with our teachers’ association--they’ve asked that some of the money be for salaries and for reducing class sizes.”

Dundon, like most other superintendents in Orange County, said he thinks it is risky to gear continuing expenses, such as teacher salaries, to an unpredictable source of money such as the lottery.

“I’m sure it (the lottery income) is going to plateau out after a year or so,” Dundon said. “I also think the Legislature may start relying on this money, instead of the general fund, to pay for education.”

Lottery ticket sales have been much higher than anticipated, meaning schools have more money than expected. Early projections were that education would net about $300 million from the lottery for the entire year. Actual first-quarter allocations alone total $272 million.

The state universities settled how they will spend their money much more quietly. Both the University of California Board of Regents and the California State University Board of Trustees decided earlier to use the lottery money for computers for students on campus. The nine UC campuses will receive $6.7 million from the first quarter, while the 19 Cal State campuses will divide $12.3 million.

The community colleges will receive $33.5 million in the first payment, with each district deciding how to spend it.

Times staff writer Bill Billiter contributed to this story.