The California winner of the $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot has been named—and some of that money will trickle down to California’s education system.
The California Lottery announced on Twitter that Edwin Castro is the winner of the record-setting jackpot. Castro indicated that he’s taking the lump sum, which comes in at just under $1 billion. The winning ticket was purchased at Joe’s Service Center on Woodbury Road in Altadena.
The California Lottery began in 1985 after the passage of Prop 37, and guaranteed that a third of revenue went to education. And the benefit to education is an ongoing point of emphasis:
Where Does The Money Go?
According to the California Lottery, the lottery has given California public schools more than $41 billion since 1985, and gave around $2 billion to public schools in the last two years alone—which is roughly 1% of the state’s annual budget for public schools.
K-12 schools receive 79.9%, Community Colleges receive 14%, California State University System receives 3.7%, and the University of California receives 2.3%.
Funding Changes
The breakdown of funds of the last few decades is impressive. But according to a 2018 LAist investigation, contributions to education by the lottery largely remain unchanged, even as revenues increase by billions of dollars.
That’s because a 2010 law changed the percentage of funding that goes to education, from the 34% set in Prop 37, to, effectively, 23%. The percentage that goes to K-12 schools and higher education has mostly remained the same.
According to the California Lottery, the amount of money available is based on how many tickets they sell that…
Read the full article here
