Lottery Funds

A House local government committee has voted down a measure that would have changed the formula for distributing lottery proceeds for school construction. Despite the unfavorable report on the bill sponsored by Rep Cary Allred, Rep. Van Braxton, D-Lenoir and the committee chairman, said it could be revived next week. "In Alamance County, we're only getting about 16 cents of every dollar that is spent (on the lottery) in Alamance County," said Allred, R-Alamance. Allred's bill would have done away with the practice of taking a county's property tax rate into account when computing proceeds. Current law favors counties that have higher than average tax rates. Committee members noted that the bill would create winning counties and losing counties. Rep Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said it could hurt poorer counties, some of which have higher tax rates. "I'm in a dilemma," McElraft said. One county she represents, Jones County, would fare worse under Allred's proposal while another county, Carteret County, would fare better.(Barry Smith, FREEDOM NEWSPAPERS, 5/06/09).