Category: Arkansas Lottery

Arkansas Lottery Spends Another $13,000 on Mileage Reimbursements for Employees

Since the beginning of November, the Arkansas Lottery has reported another $13,000 in mileage reimbursements for its employees, and $68,198.73 since since the fiscal year started on July 1, according to information on the state’s transparency website.

State employees receive 42 cents for every mile they travel on state business in their personal vehicles; some employees at the Arkansas Lottery average hundreds of dollars every month in reimbursement for their mileage.

Altogether, the Arkansas Lottery has paid its employees for nearly 32,500 miles of travel every single month, on average, since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2021.

As we have written many times, the Arkansas Lottery probably could save a lot of money by using state vehicles for travel instead of paying employees to drive their personal vehicles — or by finding ways to reduce travel in general.

Photo Credit: Airtuna08 at English Wikipedia [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]

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Arkansas Lottery’s Prize Budget Four Times Larger Than Its Scholarship Budget

The Arkansas Lottery’s prize budget for lottery players is more than four times larger than its budget for college scholarships, a new report indicates.

The Arkansas Lottery’s financial report for the month of October shows since July 1 the Arkansas Lottery has spent nearly $134.1 million on prizes, but it has spent less than $32.6 million on students.

All told, only about 17% of the Arkansas Lottery’s budget actually funds college scholarships, but nearly 71% of its budget pays for prizes for lottery players.

As we have written repeatedly, the typical state-run lottery budgets approximately 60% of its revenue for prizes and 30% for education.

The Arkansas Lottery could pay millions of dollars more to scholarships if it simply would reduce its prize budget and raise its scholarship budget — plain and simple.

Below is a breakdown of Lottery revenue and prize spending since Fiscal Year 2021 began on July 1.

Scholarship Spending

Month	Gross Lottery Revenue	Paid to Scholarships	% Gross Revenue
July	$49,780,369.99	$8,592,573.93	17.3%
August	49,672,105.04	7,862,917.44	15.8%
September	47,501,224.72	7,691,576.99	16.2%
October	42,615,839.96	8,447,337.00	19.8%
Total	$189,569,539.71	$32,594,405.36	17.2%

Prize Spending

Month	Gross Lottery Revenue	Total Prizes	% Going to Prizes
July	49,780,369.99	35,641,717.48	71.6%
August	49,672,105.04	35,023,856.83	70.5%
September	47,501,224.72	33,422,556.14	70.4%
October	42,615,839.96	29,995,072.50	70.4%
Total	189,569,539.71	134,083,202.95	70.7%

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