Not Intended to Make Up for School Cutbacks, It Says : Grand Jury Criticizes Lottery Funds’ Use

State lottery money allocated to Orange County to enhance school districts’ educational programs is being used to make up for shortfalls in district budgets, contrary to the intent of the state lottery law, according to the Orange County Grand Jury.

In some county school districts, the grand jury said, lottery revenue is paying for teacher salaries and other things that were previously part of a district’s regular budget.

The findings were contained in a report from the panel’s Juvenile Services/Education Committee.

“With less money coming to the districts from the state, there appears to be a trend developing of using the (lottery) money to avoid cutbacks, and that disturbs us,” said June Galante, the committee’s chairwoman.

Fred Koach, deputy superintendent of the Orange County Board of Education, said the panel’s assessment is on target. But he added that school districts have no choice but to use whatever resources they have to stay afloat.

Desperate Situation

“The whole funding situation in the state of California right now is desperate,” Koach said. “In the last two years, we haven’t gotten back the COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) to even keep up.”

Galante said, “People should know that the lottery is not putting any extras in” local education budgets. “It’s a shame.”

She said voters intended for lottery money to be used to “supplement” school districts’ budgets, not to meet regular expenses.

In the last year, county school districts have received a 2.5% cost-of-living increase from the state, while inflation increased by nearly double that amount, the grand jury said.

The grand jury committee urged the Orange County Department of Education to:

- Give high priority to creating a countywide drug prevention program that would be paid for with lottery proceeds.

- Use lottery money to hire a counselor for Juvenile Court schools, such as the facility at Juvenile Hall.

- Use lottery money to hire a full-time psychologist for Juvenile Court schools.

According to the grand jury’s report, Orange County received $9 million in lottery proceeds from the state in the first half of last year, with $7.3 million going to programs for kindergarten through 12th grade and the rest going to community colleges.

The report said Juvenile Court schools had not received any lottery money since the 1985-86 fiscal year.

Requests for Counselors

Koach said requests for hiring counselors and psychologists for the Juvenile Court schools should be addressed to the county Probation Department, which oversees such employees. He said the county beefed up substance abuse education programs in recent years.

In another report issued this week, a grand jury committee urged the county to develop a worker safety program to help decrease an “extraordinarily high” rate of worker compensation claims in some county departments.

The report says that 60% of traffic accidents last year that involved county vehicles were preventable and that some workers were involved in more than one preventable accident.