The State - News from July 30, 1989

A college scholarship program for poor Oakland high school students is in jeopardy because $500,000 in state lottery funds allocated for the program was spent by the school district for other purposes, according to a newspaper report. The first scholarships under the city’s Promise program were to be awarded to last month’s graduates, but the administrator who oversees the program said the funds never made it to her office and are “quite up in the air,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Sherry Willis, public information officer for the Oakland Public Schools, said the school board’s allocation for Promise never arrived. In addition, $130,000 collected for the program during an intensive fund-raising campaign in which residents were asked to donate their 1987 state income tax refunds “is just sitting in an account,” she said. The future of the scholarship program is in doubt and the start-up date has been postponed to June of next year, Willis said.