GREENSBORO, N.C. — It's called the North Carolina Education Lottery, and yes, the lottery gives money to our schools. Last year, one billion dollars of lottery money was given to North Carolina public schools. That's a lot of cash! If you won that, you'd be out of debt, right?
This is why every time we do a story involving schools needing money, we get questions from folks saying, "Isn't the lottery money supposed to take care of that? What are the schools doing with all that lottery money?'.
The North Carolina Education Lottery website allows you to see the money given to every school district. You click on the county and the numbers come up. For example, Alamance County, ABSS, got $9.9 million in 2023. The money is split into six categories: Pre-K, college scholarships, financial aid, school staff, transportation, and construction.
Nine million dollars is a chunk of change, but it doesn't come near to covering the school system's total budget, which was $50 million plus.
Now let's look at Guilford County. In 2023, the lottery gave Guilford County $32 million. It's a much bigger school system than Alamance-Burlington. The six designations are the same, but the amounts are much different. School staff makes up the bulk at $17 million. That's for support staff like office assistants, custodians, and substitute teachers. Again $32 million is a lot of money, but the Guilford County Schools budget was $1.06 billion. The lottery money covers less than a third of the expenses.
One more note, the breakdown of how lottery money is used is mandated by state lawmakers. They set the percentages and the designations. The school systems have no say in the matter.