I Need Your Input

The Board of County Commissioners will be making a decision soon about how to disperse proceeds from North Carolina's new lottery. Lottery funds, under state law, are required to be spent for education. While counties are given some leeway with regard to how to spend those monies, we cannot use lottery funds to supplant money that would have been spent on education anyway. In other words, lottery money must be new spending.

With regard to dispersing lotter proceeds, the BOCC will be chosing between two options: A) using lottery proceeds to offset annual debt service for school related debt (ie, constructing new schools) or B) allow our 2 school districts to use the money to address older facility needs.

I'd like to hear from you. What are your preferences for how lottery money should be dispersed? New construction or renovating older school buildings? You may email me at mikenelsonnc@aol.com.

There is background material on the question of how best to disperse lottery proceeds on the BOCC website. Click on "Meeting Agendas" and look for the agenda for our January 30th worksession. It's the first item on the agenda.

Thanks for your input!