Schools looking to lottery for help must wait

By Clayton Bellamy

From Oklahoma City to Idabel, budget problems are forcing school districts to reduce teaching positions and any hopes for a quick financial fix were dashed in the recently completed legislative session.

Sand Springs schools are cutting 18 teachers next fall. In Idabel, five teaching positions, a librarian job and a counseling opening will be left unfilled. Tulsa Public Schools, the state's largest school district, will cut 100 positions through attrition and Oklahoma City plans to cut 354 teachers.

This is the third consecutive year Oklahoma schools have had to weather tight budgets caused by reductions in state revenue amid an economic downturn.

Although pushed by supporters as the savior of cash-strapped schools, a proposed statewide lottery likely would not provide them any funds until 2006 _ and that's only if voters approve the plan during the November 2004 election.

"It's a long time coming, and boy it's a real tenuous situation we find ourselves in in the short term," said Sand Springs Superintendent Lloyd Snow.

Gov. Brad Henry and Rep. Ron Kirby, a Lawton Democrat who sponsored the lottery bill, estimate that it will take up to a year _ or until Fall 2005 _ to get a lottery running if Oklahomans vote to adopt one.

Then, no money can be spent until the Legislature, in the 2006 session, approves education funding recommendations from the Oklahoma Lottery Commission, according to the bill.

"We are in a crisis, and we need the money now," said Woodward Public Schools Deputy Superintendent Sam McElvany. "Funding the lottery in 2006 won't help us now."

Henry made the lottery the centerpiece of his plans to boost education funding. He had wanted voters to consider the lottery and a constitutional amendment ensuring that its proceeds go to schools during the same special election this year.

But the governor reluctantly set the late polling date after the House defeated the special election clause in the companion amendment. Opponents, mostly Republicans, said the amendment lacked specific breakdowns of how lottery money should be spent.

"The governor had always wanted the vote on the lottery to be earlier rather than later, but he thought it was important that there be that constitutional safeguard," spokesman Phil Bacharach said.

Lottery supporters defended the late vote, even if the games' money eventually arrives after an improving economy relieves schools' budget problems.

"It's no secret that education funding in Oklahoma has always lagged behind what it should be," Bacharach said. "So, there's always going to be a need to pump money into the classroom, whether it's in 2006 or now."

Meanwhile, schools have to make do this school year with a statewide budget that restored just $80 million of last year's $273 million in cuts. Lawmakers also defeated schools' attempt at a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase.

"The Legislature has known of this funding crisis for over a year now," McElvany said. "And they've gone through this year without doing anything for education."

In Sand Springs, Snow has cut $2.3 million in spending the last two years by closing his smallest elementary school, cutting 17 teachers and outsourcing some programs to Tulsa Technology Center.

"We're doing it as smartly as we can, but we're at a point in time where we don't have very many solutions in the future," he said. "We don't have another small school where we can look to closing. We've got to hope the economy gets better really fast, or we all get the courage to make the tough decisions to raise some more revenue."