Lottery Achieves Scholarship Goal

Friday, August 24, 2007

Lottery Achieves Scholarship Goal

By Charles D. Brunt
Journal Staff Writer

The state Lottery met its new legislative edict to put at least 27 percent of its revenues into the lottery scholarship fund in July, the first month the benchmark went into effect.
Lottery CEO Tom E. Romero told Lottery Authority Board members at their meeting Thursday that, for July, the lottery sent the state $3,082,827 in net income. That amount equals 27.76 percent of July's gross revenues of $11,104,753.
Earlier this year, Gov. Bill Richardson signed legislation directing lottery officials to steer more lottery money to its primary beneficiary— the Legislative Lottery Scholarship program. Since the lottery started in 1996, the program has paid tuition for about 43,000 eligible students attending state-funded colleges and universities, about 15,000 of whom earned undergraduate degrees.
Since the lottery's inception, the Lottery Authority had been putting an average of 23.4 percent of its revenues into scholarships, while spending nearly that much on administrative and operating costs.
The bill signed by Richardson, who appoints the seven-member lottery board, earmarks 27 percent of lottery revenues for scholarships this fiscal year— which began July 1— and 30 percent in following years.
That forced lottery officials to trim $3.1 million from the just-ended fiscal year budget. Romero said budget cuts are still being made, particularly in advertising and operating costs.