News-Record.com

Before getting to the heavy lifting, let me take a minute to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Chanukah (we celebrate both in my house) or whatever it is that you happen to be celebrating this time of year.

Now on to business:

From Sunday's paper, I had a couple of stories (or a story and a sidebar if you want get all newsy on me) about lessons learned from other states that have had lotteries. Update:I have links to the stories now. I'd post links to them here, but apparently our web site had a little too much virtual eggnog last night and hasn’t updated with new stuff yet. I'll post links when I get 'em. (In the mean time, consider running out to pick up that old fashion paper thingy that comes with all the glossy after Christmas sale ads inside.)

• One outlines the big state budget shell game that lotteries can become. It also points out how one state – Georgia – did things at least pretty much right. Click here for that one.
• The sidebar looks at a potential side effect of having a lottery, one that worries local school districts. If people hear the lottery is taking care of educational needs enough, they may stop backing local school bond referenda. Click here for that one.

A big note on both those stories is that they have almost nothing to do with the conduct of the lottery itself. Rather, they look at the consequences of what people do with the lottery money once it’s raked in.

The background for this story fills a couple of accordion file folders. But here are some of the best selections from the read-it-yourself department:

• This is the New York State auditor's report from 1998 that I mention in the story. (It's a PDF, kind of big.) The best quote in the whole thing comes from the transmittal letter: "Even today, a new lottery advertising campaign perpetuates the myth that schools receive additional resources from the lottery. The truth is that the Legislature and Governor decide how much state aid will go to local schools and the amount from the lottery is just a small part of that total. Lottery money has never supplemented state aid; it doesn’t today and it likely never will."
• There are a lot of academic studies out there on lotteries. Some are pretty clear, while others are down right obtuse. Rodney Stanley, of Tennessee State University (and a Greensboro-area native) has done some of what I think is the most straight-forward work on his subject. In this paper, he argues "state operated lotteries are failing to offer substantial benefits to students due to the issue of fungibility, and the small portion of actual dollars generated by the lottery for education."
• Just to provide a counter-weight, this paper from Stanford suggests dedicating lottery spending for education does drive up over-all education spending (another PDF) concluding: "While the political motivation for earmarking legislation may revolve around gaining and maintaining political support for operating a lottery, this paper suggests that earmarking profits will in fact have real implications for educational spending in states." This conclusion seems to be the minority report on the topic.
• More locally, Charlotte Advocates for Education has done some work that that cleaves closely to Stanley's conclusions. This group is keen on seeing the legislature pass a constitutional amendment to safeguard the lottery’s proceeds.

If you have questions about any of that source material, or where you can find more, drop me a line in the comments section below.

The big disappointment for me in this story is not landing one interview: Zell Miller. Before he was a U.S. Senator and an - um - well known political convention speaker, he was governor of Georgia when that state's lottery came about. Since Georgia keeps getting cited for doing things right, I would have really liked to have gotten his insight on the topic. Alas, it was not to be.

As for what the rest of the state was talking about this weekend:

• Sharif Durhams at the Charlotte paper writes about some western legislators call for a special session to consider dropping the rate on the state's gas tax. Sharif writes that Gov. Easley's office was cool to that idea. This idea will have a hard time getting traction because the cost-benefit equation doesn't look that good in the harsh light of day. Most figures I've seen say an average family might get somewhere between $15 and - being generous - $50 back a year, but the account that pays for state road construction would lose millions of dollars. Still, it's a proposed tax cut on what has become a high-dollar item, so look for this idea to get a lot of chatter in coming months. Click here for AP's story on the topic.
• From the world’s smallest fiddle section, our friends south of the border seem to think that NC’s new lottery will cut into their sales.

Right, that's enough of that. It's time for me to help my boy play with his new train set see what Santa left in my stocking.