CLEVELAND (BNN)-- Tuesday's Mega Millions Lottery prize skyrocketed to over $1.1 billion, a figure that tends to increase sales even among people who do not normally take part. The Powerball jackpot sits at a not-too-shabby $865 million.
" It seeks all a lottery, it is the luck of the draw," stated Ohio Lottery Spokesperson Danielle Frizzi-Babb.
The Ohio Lottery posts on it site: "One hundred percent of Ohio Lottery earnings helps assistance K-12, special and employment education programs in Ohio. Since 1974, the Ohio Lottery has offered more than $31 billion to Ohio's education programs."
While the lottery game generates the profits from the sale of its tickets, it does not identify how the money is disbursed.
" We put the cash in the fund and that's where our task with it ends, and the rest depends on the legislature and department of education," said Babb.
She explained that in 2015, the Ohio Lottery contributed $1.46 billion to the Ohio Lottery Profits Education Fund
For the current fiscal year, the state basic assembly budgeted $17.1 billion to be divided amongst schools throughout the state.
Only $1.5 billion of that, or roughly 12% is from the Ohio lotto.
When the lotto jackpots skyrocket, the Ohio Department of Education confirms to Fox 8 News that the state's budgeted amount for schools does not change even.
" The budget plan for education is set for each year by the Ohio General Assembly, and changes in benefit from the lottery do not alter those figures. If lottery earnings are higher than expected, it provides the General Assembly more funds to suitable in future budgets." we were informed in a department of education e-mail.
Ryan Pendleton is a previous treasurer for Barberton and
Akron Public Schools.
He is currently the executive director of the North Coast Shared Service Alliance, which coordinates financial and operations support for Northeast Ohio school districts.
He verifies that schools will not instantly see a boost in state income regardless of how high the lotto jackpots get.
Identifying precisely just how much cash each school district receives from lottery game earnings is likewise challenging to do
Although numerous local schools are currently on spring break, Fox 8 News was able to reach numerous school district treasurers who had no idea how much of their state funding came from lottery earnings.
" The general earnings funds, lottery tangible compensation, real estate tax repayment, any federal stimulus funds, those all flow into one fund that pays out to our 609-plus school districts in Ohio, so there's no specific method to locate the lottery game proceeds straight impacting a school district," said Pendleton.
Can we still call it Dollar Tree? Prices supposedly going up as high as $7.
Of the current huge prizes, there are more than 40 states that participate, so Ohio only keeps the earnings made from tickets offered in the state.
Taking a look at the Mega Millions drawing particularly, Frizzi-Babb informs Fox 8 the Ohio Lottery had $4.7 million in sales from the last illustration on Friday. Ticket sales for Tuesday's drawing were estimated at $6.7 million in Ohio alone.
Frizzi-Babb however states the state does not get all of that cash.
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