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Thursday, April 30, 1998

Leave lottery to professionals hired to run it

Texas legislators can't seem to keep from playing games with the lottery.

In its six years of existence, various and sundry schemes have been proposed for using the lottery as a cash cow to solve state financial problems. One of the most popular would assign a certain percentage of lottery proceeds to public education, even though the total lottery intake would make only a small dent in education costs and even though lottery income varies while school budgets remain fixed from year to year.

Many lawmakers turned to the lottery as a possible magic bullet when property tax reform was being debated in last year's legislative session, but they found lottery dollars can't be stretched that far. State Sen. Tom Haywood says he will again bring up his plan to give a certain percentage of lottery income back to cities and towns based on ticket sales, instead of sending that revenue into the general fund to contribute to all state expenses.

In another misguided attempt to tinker with lottery revenue, last year's Legislature saw fit to micromanage the size of jackpots, cutting overall prizes to increase the state's share of revenue. It didn't work. In fact, it backfired completely. Ticket sales dropped significantly, and now the state will end up with $328 million less than the current budget called for. This has led some state senators to say the Legislature should either return prizes to where they were -- or else allow the Lottery Commission to determine how to best maximize profits.

Now there's a concept! Hire the best people who know how to run a business, and then get out of the way and let them do it. Who ever heard of so radical a notion?

The fiasco produced by reducing lottery jackpots ought to teach the Legislature a clear lesson: Leave the lottery alone.

New Texas Lottery Commission Executive Director Linda Cloud has been widely praised for restoring efficiency and stability to an agency shaken last year by rocky management. Lawmakers should let her do the job she was hired to do and quit interfering.

Government intrusion is often harmful. In this instance, it has been demonstrably so. The Legislature has more than enough problems it needs to address. The Lottery Commission can take care of its own.