Use of Lottery Funds to Build Classrooms Backed

The California Lottery Commission on Wednesday adopted a resolution calling for legislation to allow school districts to use lottery funds to build more classrooms and to acquire land to construct new school facilities.

Commission member William J. Johnston, a former Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent, said the Los Angeles district faces an overcrowding crisis and needs a new law to free lottery revenues for school construction. Current law forbids use of lottery revenue for construction.

The Los Angeles school board recently voted to set aside most of its initial share of lottery revenue--$30.5 million--for construction in the hopes that the law will be changed.

After a brief debate, the commission voted 3 to 1 to adopt the measure; one member was absent.

Commissioner Kennard Webster, an accountant who cast the dissenting vote, said he viewed the resolution as ordering a change in the lottery initiative approved by voters in 1984. “I hesitate to set that precedent,” he said.

Los Angeles school officials welcomed the Lottery Commission vote.

“It’s an extremely important first step in getting the legislation approved and I hope it will have an encouraging effect on legislators,” said Rita Waters, Los Angeles school board president.

Under the two-year-old lottery initiative, 34% of lottery profits go to education--but only for educational materials and salaries. Using lottery revenues for capital construction was forbidden by the act.

Of the several bills awaiting legislative action, Los Angeles school officials are pushing a measure by Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) because it is the only measure that wouldn’t also have to be approved by voters.

The Waters bill, which requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature for adoption, is scheduled to be heard by the Assembly Education Committee on April 22.