The S.C. Education Lottery has been a gamble that has paid off big time, bringing in millions more dollars than advertised.

Last year, the lottery brought in about $627 million in sales statewide, with $44.4 million worth of sales in Charleston County, second only to Horry County, with about $44.6 million in sales.

Berkeley and Dorchester counties had total sales of $18 million and $10.1 million, respectively.

The Powerball game alone, in which players have a distant shot at a multimillion-dollar payoff, has brought in more than $122 million since it started in October.

The impact of all this on education has been diluted by a few factors, however. Not only is a sizable chunk set aside for prizes and running the games, but lawmakers have used the proceeds for all sorts of education-related expenditures from college scholarships to elementary education to endowed chairs and technology for colleges to county libraries to digitalizing ETV.

Such expenditures are worthy causes, but they were never the intent of where the lottery money should go, said Sen. John Land, the Senate Democratic leader. He said not enough lottery money has been spent as originally intended -- to help students go to college.

When selling the idea to voters, former Gov. Jim Hodges proposed creating a lottery similar to Georgia's lottery, which supports college scholarships and technology in the schools. But South Carolina's lottery money was never earmarked for a specific area, leaving it to lawmakers to figure out what to do with the money.

The biggest chunks have gone for scholarships and elementary education. In the fiscal year ending June 30, about $86.3 million, or about half of the lottery revenue, went toward college scholarships. About $40.9 million went to elementary education.

As the lottery enters its third year, House and Senate members have continued to grapple over where the money should go. The House wanted $63.5 million for elementary education and $121.6 million for higher education, while the Senate pushed for $143 million for higher education and $42.5 million in elementary education. The conference committee compromised with about $138 million to higher education and $51.5 million to elementary education.

"Both years that's been the real struggle," said state Rep. Bobby Harrell, chairman of the House's Ways and Means Committee. "That may settle down over time, but I expect the debate to continue at least another year or so."

"In the end, there isn't enough money to fund everything everybody thought was going to be funded," Harrell said.

A WINNING TICKET

In 1998, the state Board of Economic Advisers estimated that a lottery would generate about $214 million in sales in the first year. After prizes, administration and advertising, it forecast that about $75 million would remain for education.

Hodges was estimating about $150 million to $200 million in lottery revenue, though those against the lottery were predicting much lower numbers.

The lottery brought in about $174 million during its first full year. Next year, the House and Senate Conference Committee is banking on roughly $204 million.

But not enough of the scholarships benefit poor students, said Sen. John Matthews, D-Bowman, which is why he has suggested doing away with the lottery.

Land said many recipients of LIFE and Palmetto Fellows scholarships, which are based on merit, not need, are from higher-income homes whose families already can afford college.

Lottery proceeds were intended to help the average student go to college through the need-based HOPE scholarship and provide free technical school education for South Carolina students, he said.

The Conference Committee's lottery spending this year includes $3 million for the "Higher Education Excellence Enhancement Program," a new program that calls for the Commission on Higher Education to work with colleges where 60 percent or more of students are poor and educationally disadvantaged. Those colleges can use the money to obtain federal funding.

COLLEGE STUDENTS CASHING IN

Marco Villegas is relying on lottery tuition assistance to help him earn prenursing certification at Trident Technical College so he can use the income from two part-time jobs and his GI Bill to pay back student loans and cover food, housing and everything else. Without the lottery-funded assistance, Villegas said he would have to keep one part-time job and find a full-time job to pay for school, an added drain on his time and energy.

"It's kind of a lesser of two evils," Villegas said. "What I think might happen is more will go into public schools versus higher education."

The latest numbers from the Commission on Higher Education show students from Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties receiving about $2.7 million in lottery-funded tuition assistance for spring 2003. That includes assistance for two-year colleges and technical schools, but not the HOPE, LIFE and other scholarship funding.

Villegas said it's a double-edged sword, either the Legislature satisfies those who rely on the scholarship money for college or it satisfies those who want the money to make public schools better. Both are worthy goals, but only one promises direct help for Villegas and others like him.

"I would rather it go to colleges as it was first introduced and promised," he said.

K-12 SPENDING

Out of the $272 million in lottery money raised from its inception in 2001 to the end of this fiscal year, public schools saw about $81 million.

That sounds like a lot until it's compared with all federal, state and local money spent on South Carolina public schools, which comes to about $6 billion.

"A lot of people wonder, 'Why are you talking about being in such a mess funding-wise when you've got all that lottery money?' "said Brantley Thomas, finance director for Berkeley County schools.

About $24 million of that $81 million went to school buses, which the state buys and distributes to school districts. The state bought about 222 school buses with $14 million of that allocation and diverted about $10 million to repair older buses. There are 85 school districts in the state, and each needed new buses.

Another $24 million helped pay for some of the things mandated under the Education Accountability Act for those schools that were labeled "unsatisfactory" or, in some cases, "below average" on the state report cards.

Of the remaining money, about $33 million went to elementary reading, math, science and social studies programs in the 85 school districts. About $3.5 million of that goes to statewide efforts, such as training math and science instructional coaches to work with teachers and literacy coaches.

Of that amount, about $1 million went to Berkeley County schools, $1.8 million to Charleston County schools, $623,000 to Dorchester District 2 and $134,000 to Dorchester District 4.

BUDGET LIFELINE

When the lottery passed, there was a lot of talk that its income shouldn't supplant the state's existing funding to schools.

But these days, as the state faces one of its most difficult budget years in recent memory, lottery money is looking less like a supplement and more like a lifeline.

With the lottery money they have, several local school districts are taking advantage of flexible spending to make up for state budget cuts.

The joint resolution to give schools flexibility in spending gives them few limitations on how they use the lottery money to support instructional programs and operating costs, said state Deputy Superintendent Elmer Whitten.

Some of the money, such as that for teacher specialists, already has gone to those individuals, he said, but school districts have the most flexibility with their money for the kindergarten through fifth-grade programs and the retraining grant money.

While the amount of lottery money local districts received didn't amount to much when compared with their overall budgets, it eased the effects of state budget cuts.

"When you're looking at making up $9.1 million three-fourths of the way through (the school year), it made a difference of not having to have additional furloughs," said Terri Shannon, finance director for Charleston County schools. "Had they not given us this flexibility, we really would have been in dire straits."

Dorchester District 2 is using the flexibility to carry over the money it received this year to offset its deficit next year, said Finance Director Allyson Duke.

Eventually, the district wants to get back to using lottery money for something other than compensating for state budget cuts.

"We would like to be able to go above and beyond to implement new programs with it," Duke said.