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Treasurer tells Olentangy board gaming revenue is limited and often supplants state school funding
Summary
At the April 23 Olentangy Local board meeting, Treasurer Mr. Jenkins explained that lottery and gaming revenues covered roughly 1125 of state K-12 funding in FY2024 and cautioned those revenues often supplant rather than add to state education dollars; board members urged voters to engage legislators on broader funding policy.
At the Olentangy Local Board of Education meeting on April 23, Treasurer Mr. Jenkins briefed the board on how state lottery, casino and sports‑betting revenues flow to education and cautioned they are a limited and frequently fungible source of funding.
"If you take all sources of what I'll just call lottery or gambling type of proceeds in fiscal year 2024, it covered just a shade under 12% of education funding," Jenkins said, citing Legislative Service Commission figures and noting about $1.7 billion in combined proceeds. He added that video lottery terminals contributed about $460 million and that sports‑betting, taxed since July 2023, is routed to education‑related purposes but has largely been used in ways that do not guarantee dollar‑for‑dollar increases for districts.
Jenkins warned that the state typically treats gambling proceeds as "first‑dollar" funding, which can allow other state general‑fund contributions to be reduced rather than supplemented. "Lottery growth does not guarantee increased dollar for‑dollar funding for school districts," he said.
Board members pressed how recent gaming revenue is being used. Several members observed that a significant portion of new sports‑betting revenue has been allocated to state voucher programs, not straight to K‑12 base funding, and urged community engagement with legislators on the state budget and the fair‑school‑funding formula.
The discussion underscored the board's larger point that policy decisions at the legislature have more influence over district budgets than fluctuations in gaming receipts. The board did not adopt new policy as part of the discussion; members instead encouraged residents to contact state representatives to press for changes to the funding formula and base cost levels.
