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The concern is usually that (made up numbers) school is budgeted at 100M/yr from the general fund. Then they get a lottery that provides 30M/yr, and 100% goes t

The concern is usually that (made up numbers) school is budgeted at 100M/yr from the general fund. Then they get a lottery that provides 30M/yr, and 100% goes to the schools. Now the schools have 130M/yr right? But the worry is instead they reduce the funds from the general budget to 70M. The lottery money all went to the schools, but the extra 30M went to the general fund.

loeg 5y ago
Yeah, money is fungible. Earmarking for a specific cause X just means less of X's funding comes from the general fund.
- cmckn 5y ago
  You could think of it that way, but funds such as those created by the lottery are less discretionary than the general fund -- so isn't this a good thing?