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An audit released on Tuesday blamed the California Lottery of an outdated prize pay-out scheme and lack of oversight. It added that the lottery haddefied education funding laws and owes public schools $36 million.<\/p>\nAn audit released on Tuesday blamed the California Lottery of an outdated prize pay-out scheme and lack of oversight. It added that the lottery haddefied education funding laws and owes public schools $36 million.<\/p>\n
State Auditor Elaine Howle confirmed the concerns of suspicious lawmakers by revealing that the lottery hasn\u2019t complied with a 2010 funding law, nor can it prove its pay-outs are crafted to maximise education benefits. Howle warned the lottery needs better state oversight to meet its voter-approved purpose of strengthening public education.<\/p>\n
The audit opens stating, \u201cThe lottery failed to provide $36\u00a0million in funding to education in\u00a0the fiscal year\u00a02017\u201318 because it did not budget to adhere to the proportionality requirement in the Lottery Act.\u201d<\/p>\n
As per Howle, the lottery last reviewed its pay-out structure 10 years back. In the meantime, it handed out $5.7 million in non-competitive contracts without \u201cadequate evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil the lottery determines the correct prize pay-out percentage, California will not know whether education is receiving all of the funding from the lottery that it should,\u201d Howle added.<\/p>\n
The lottery\u2019s directors wrote a response letter pushing back on many of the audit\u2019s findings \u2013 the letter stated that in the 4 years the proportionality requirement has been in place, the lottery has provided $6.7 billion for education. It says that the lottery has set a goal of contributing $2 billion to education by 2021 and Howle\u2019s findings of a short-change \u201carise from a fundamental difference of opinion over interpretation\u201d of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The audit claims thata lack of oversight by the State Controller\u2019s Officehas left lawmakers out of the loop about the lottery\u2019s performance. Howle says the regulator eraseda 2019 auditinformation about questionable travel and hotel costs amounting to $720,000 and has allowed the lottery to essentially perform its own reviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe controller\u2019s office relied solely on the lottery to prepare a report for the Legislature on\u00a0the lottery\u2019s performance without assessing the thoroughness of the report, and therefore the Legislature has gone\u00a0without independent analysis of whether the lottery has fulfilled the purposes of the 2010\u00a0changes to the Lottery Act,\u201d the audit adds.<\/p>\n
The state controller\u2019s office repliedsaying the \u201caudit makes assumptions and selective interpretations of fact that are inconsistent with responsible auditing practices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howle recommends that the Legislature should instruct the lottery to repay $36 million and direct the controller\u2019s office to conduct audits of the lottery\u2019s procurement procedures. He alsosuggeststhat the lottery study and come up with a better prize pay-out rate by August.<\/p>\n
State Senator Ling LingChang (R-Diamond Bar), who had requested the audit, says she is not surprised by the audit findings.<\/p>\n
Chang stated,\u201cThey\u2019ve wasted money that should go to classrooms. I will be introducing legislation to ensure schools get their lost funding back and get max funding in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An audit released on Tuesday blamed the California Lottery of an outdated prize pay-out scheme and lack of oversight. It added that the lottery haddefied education funding laws and owes public schools $36 million. State Auditor Elaine Howle confirmed the concerns of suspicious lawmakers by revealing that the lottery hasn\u2019t complied with a 2010 funding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":30442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","category-headlines","category-latest"],"yoast_head":"\n