Schools Will Get $481 Million in Lottery Funds for 1986-87

California schools and colleges will receive an estimated $481 million from the state lottery during the 1986-87 fiscal year ending June 30 or about 3% of the schools’ budgets, state Supt. of Schools Bill Honig reported Friday.

Honig warned, however, that if the budget cuts sought by Gov. George Deukmejian go through, the schools will be using all their lottery money next year to make up for the cuts.

“That’s what the statute said you weren’t supposed to do, and that’s what the public thought would never happen. It’s going to happen next year,” Honig told reporters at a press conference.

In a report to the state Board of Education sharply critical of the lottery, Honig said that “as we feared when the lottery first began, the general public now has the misperception that school funding is all taken care of and that attention can be turned elsewhere.”

“I think the answer is not to get more funds from the lottery. The answer is to put the lottery in perspective. It’s only 2.6% of total funds. It should be just extra. It should be icing on the cake.

“We should get adequate funding from the state, from the budgetary process, so schools don’t have to cut back and don’t have to use lottery money in their regular programs,” he said.

The schools’ 1986-87 share, as expected, is down sharply from the $689 million received in 1985-86, the first year of the lottery.