News 14 Carolina - Political Connections

Lottery update...the following came from lottery headquarters minutes ago...

"RALEIGH- The North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL) today made its final transfer for the first complete fiscal year bringing the total of the Education Lottery Fund since inception to $375.3 million. The amount of $69.4 million transferred for sales in the last quarter brings the Fiscal Year 2006-2007 total to $313,018,542. This represents a 35% return to education from gross sales of $889.3 million for the fiscal year.

“We think this is enormous that in our first 15 months of operations the NCEL has raised over $375 million of new money for North Carolina’s students,” said Tom Shaheen, NCEL executive director. “We have been hearing stories all across the state about school systems that are using the money for school construction and serving at-risk four year olds.”

According to the Department of Public Instruction, the fund has been used for approximately 70 school renovation projects that include fire alarm system installation, security surveillance system upgrades, roof replacements and more. It also has funded an estimated 2,525 class size reduction teacher positions. Over 18,000 four year olds are served by More at Four, the award-winning academic pre-kindergarten program.

The North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority estimates it will hand out 30,000 Education Lottery Scholarships for college students for the 2007-2008 year. The scholarships go to students who qualify for the federal Pell Grant and can only be used at North Carolina public and private universities and community colleges.

The NCEL made the electronic transfer to the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) to be disbursed to the beneficiary programs. The Department of Public Instruction will manage the distribution of the funds for all the beneficiary programs except the college scholarships, which will be handled by the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority.

Since inception (March 30, 2006) through July 23, 2007, the NCEL has raised over $1.163 billion total gross sales."