The state of New York distributes lottery and gaming funds to the state\u2019s more than 700 school districts.<\/p>\n
Funding for education in the state budget is made up of local, state and federal aid.<\/p>\n
The part coming from the lottery has been around since 1967 and continues to grow with new gaming options.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last fiscal year, more than $5 billion went into education,\u201d said Brian O\u2019Dwyer, chairman of the New York State Gaming Commission.<\/p>\n
According to the New York State Gaming Commission, that $5 billion breaks down to:<\/p>\n
\u00b7 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0$2.5 billion from the lottery<\/p>\n
\u00b7 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0$1.1 billion from video lottery terminals or slots<\/p>\n
\u00b7 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0$1.3 billion from sports wagering<\/p>\n
\u00b7 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0$139 million from new commercial casinos<\/p>\n
When it comes to how the money is distributed to the districts, Robert Lowry, education finance and policy analyst for the New York State Council of School Superintendents, said it\u2019s broken down by a district\u2019s size.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat that does is it affects the share of total funding that school districts are receiving through the lottery,\u201d said Lowry. \u201cThe overall funding to schools is decided through state aid formulas.\u201d<\/p>\n
A major question New Yorkers have is what is the money being spent on. Lowry said there\u2019s a small part of the money that goes towards the purchasing of textbooks for school districts and private schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut most of it covers for just helping to pay for the overall cost of state aid to education,\u201d said Lowry. \u201cSo, you know, the largest share of school spending goes for salaries and benefits to employees and teachers in particular, and you know that’s probably 70 or 80% of school spending.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it comes to future contributions from the state\u2019s lottery and gaming, O\u2019Dwyer anticipates sports wagering and commercial casinos will surpass the lottery.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe major entity giving to education has always been the lottery at $2.5 billion,\u201d said O\u2019Dwyer. \u201cI suspect that in the next two to three years that will be overtaking by sports wagering. It\u2019s now at $1.3 [billion]. It will probably double within the next three to four years.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Dwyer said sports wagering is only two years old in the Empire State.<\/p>\n
He said the money from the New York Lottery goes straight into the education component of the state budget, so the legislature doesn\u2019t have discretion over it.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Dwyer adds that when the lottery was introduced this specification was added to the state\u2019s constitution.<\/p>\n
When it comes to schools getting the money, because the state fiscal year begins annually on April 1 and the school year begins annually on July 1, the state typically pays about 70% of the annual school year commitment during the initial state fiscal year.<\/p>\n
The remaining 30% is paid in the first quarter of the following state fiscal year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state of New York distributes lottery and gaming funds to the state\u2019s more than 700 school districts.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[109,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,5304,112,87,6317,200],"class_list":["post-348774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-nicole-neuman","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-swarm","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}