N.C. lottery shortfall may slam schools

Sunday, January 14, 2007 posted 09:55 AM EST

BOLIVIA, N.C. - Brunswick school officials aren't sure how much of the $900,000 they planned on getting from the state for the 2007-08 school year will actually arrive, now that N.C. Education Lottery projections have come in lower than expected.

Brunswick Schools Superintendent Katie McGee said the money earmarked from the lottery was to be used to build new schools. "Depending on how extensive the shortfall becomes, we will need to re-evaluate our [five-year capital improvement] plan," McGee said.

The question the district is facing is how to finance school construction in response to a projected overload of 2,300 students in Brunswick County schools by 2015 - a figure the school system was provided by Raleigh-based Planning Alliance, an educational planning company, which the school system hired to help develop a plan to address growth.

School officials are considering building a new elementary school, middle school, two new high schools and possibly a pre-kindergarten center on the county's north side.

The state lottery's 2006-2007 fiscal year budget calls for it to raise $401 million for education statewide. At least 35 percent of net revenues from the N.C. Education Lottery must be used for initiatives such as class-size reduction, preschool programs, school construction and college scholarships for needy students.

But executive director Thomas Shaheen recently told the Associated Press that the lottery could do $1 billion in business by June 30, the fiscal year's end, which means $350 million for education statewide - much less than budgeted.

Without some of that projected $900,000 for Brunswick schools, McGee said, the school system will have to dip into the $2.4 million it gets from the county for small capital-improvement projects - which would essentially cut funds from some of those projects, such as relocation of modular classrooms, furniture, equipment and vehicles to make way for the new schools needed.

"We actually have other funding sources that could be used to pick up the slack," McGee said. "At this point and time for us ... new [schools are] more important than these smaller projects."

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