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Senate gives $33k lottery funds to PSS teachers
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Posted on Jul 01 2005
The Senate has decided to appropriate $33,320 in unclaimed lottery funds to Public School System teachers for “urgent” classroom use.
The measure, House Bill 14-223, originally wanted to give the funds, then totaling $24,000, to the Postsecondary Teacher Education Program Scholarship.
PSS teacher representative Ambrose Bennett had lobbied the Senate to allocate the funds to classroom teachers who, he said, are often forced to use their own money to buy “badly needed classroom supplies.”
He said the unclaimed lottery money should not all be put on the teacher scholarship program, saying that current teachers also deserve that kind of assistance.
In the amended bill, the Senate acknowledged that “many teachers currently purchase supplies for their students out of their own pockets due to inadequate supplies.”
“Lack of much-needed supplies deprives our children of the quality education they are rightfully entitled to. Therefore, this bill intends to alleviate some of the financial burden on the schools and teachers of PSS,” said the bill.
Senator Joseph M. Mendiola, chair of the Committee on Fiscal Affairs, said the teacher education program scholarship “receives funding as per Public Law 13-24.”
The Senate said any full-time PSS teacher is eligible for the funds and shall be the expenditure authority, subject to the concurrence of the school principal.
The funds are the accumulated unclaimed lottery prizes from 1998 to 2004.
