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Adriano: Share lottery funds with teachers
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Posted on Mar 24 2005
Senate President Joaquin G. Adriano favors an amendment that would divide the $24,000 unclaimed lottery winnings between teacher scholarship recipients and the current teachers in the CNMI.
Adriano said the amendment is embodied in a House bill that appropriates the funds to the Teacher Scholarship Program.
He said the bill was not acted on during a Senate session on Rota last week due to the amendment.
“It didn’t pass because of the 50-percent sharing provision we put in. Originally, the House version wants to give the entire amount to the scholarship program,” said Adriano.
“We’re trying to change that to reflect the 50-percent sharing,” said Adriano.
He said that Public School System Teacher Representative Ambrose Bennett petitioned the Senate “to consider the needs of current teachers.”
Bennett earlier called on the House not to put all unclaimed lottery money on the teacher scholarship program, saying that current teachers also deserve that kind of assistance.
He said teachers need financial assistance for their classroom needs.
“The present condition of teachers working with students are at an all-time low when it comes to having the necessary resource materials and other vital supplies. There’s no need for the scholarship to be given all the money and future money because it only needs funding one year at a time,” said Bennett.
The money was the accumulated amount of unclaimed lottery prizes from 1998 to March 2004.
Bennett said the funds sat idle for over two years “until teachers discovered it and asked that it be allocated for their classroom-related uses.”
“Helping the scholarship fund is a noble cause but the current teachers also need help. Because we care about the scholarship, we believe it would be better to divide the money equally between the program and the current teachers,” he said.
The bill, authored by House Education Committee chair Justo Quitugua calls for the creation of a Lottery Commission for unclaimed prizes.
It provides that all unclaimed prizes shall be deposited in the postsecondary teacher education program scholarship account to be created by the Secretary of Finance.
The CNMI scholarship administrator shall be the expenditure authority of the funds.
