No jackpot for education

The lottery is an official state gambling enterprise precisely because voters in 1986 wanted the profits to go to public education. But notice the sleight of hand on Tuesday as a $50-million Lotto jackpot went unclaimed. That's the largest jackpot ever unclaimed, and its current cash value is $30.1-million. So what happened to the money?

It was moved from one lottery pocket to another.

Lottery officials call this prudent business practice, and claim, rather conveniently, that each $1 of unclaimed prize money that is rolled into marketing and future jackpots returns $1.32 to schools. Voters, who already feel deceived by the broken promise that the lottery would enhance education, may call it something different. They may see it as just another government con.

In the past, some brave lawmakers have challenged this practice. Former Sen. Jack Latvala, from Palm Harbor, was one of the last to try. He filed a bill in 1997 insisting that unclaimed money be invested in schools, but couldn't get it passed even in his own chamber. The reason: the unproven yet steadfast claim from lottery officials that education would end up getting less. "They say it's going to hurt," Latvala said at the time. "I'd just like to try it and see. I don't think a year or two of trying it would hurt."

When Latvala asked the question, the lottery claimed a slightly smaller return, $1.26, on each $1 of unclaimed prize money. But the precision of either of these numbers defies ready belief. The lottery proceeds to education have ebbed and flowed over the past 15 years, often linked to the economy. How can lottery officials credibly isolate one variable, the reinvestment of unclaimed prize money, and compute its impact on overall sales? If their argument were true, then why not reduce the current percentage of money allocated for education? Why not drop the formula from 38 to 37 percent of total lottery receipts? That way, the lottery could reinvest each of those dollars for a return of $1.26 (or $1.32, depending on which year you ask).

The stated return on investment of unclaimed lottery prizes sounds suspiciously like the economic spinoff projections that professional sports teams use to pry multimillion-dollar concessions out of local governments, and current lawmakers ought not accept the numbers at face value. These are great sums of money that, in a time of budgetary crisis, are needed more to run schools than to promote the lottery.

Since the lottery was first created, Florida voters have seen their schools suffer as lawmakers used the proceeds as a way to siphon the general government support from education. They also have now seen roughly a half-billion dollars in unclaimed prize money moved from one lottery pocket to another. Why should the lottery, and not schools, win this jackpot?

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