The Virginia Lottery does a good job marketing itself as funding public schools. Its Playing Matters campaign says about 30 cents of every dollar spent on Lottery games goes to K-12. The state Constitution requires the profits to go to education.
However, after 47 localities across Virginia asked their residents for a sales-tax hike for school construction — and voters in 32 of them said no — Virginia Insider took a closer look at how much Lottery money actually reaches public schools and what it does not cover.
On November 3, 47 cities and counties put a one-percentage-point local sales tax on the ballot for school construction. Thirty-two said no. Fifteen said yes.
The authority under Code §58.1-605.1 lets a locality add up to one percentage point of local sales tax, restricted to capital: new construction, major renovation, and related financing. Not teacher pay. An extra dollar on a hundred-dollar taxable purchase. Groceries and essential hygiene are exempt from the extra penny.
Richmond and Charlottesville voted yes by wide margins. Chesterfield County was about 51 percent, making it eligible for a recount. Martinsville passed it by about five votes. A yes vote does not automatically enact the tax. The local board still must pass an ordinance, effective the first day of a month at least 120 days after adoption. In places that rejected it, boards now have to go back to the existing budget, the capital improvement plan, and the real-estate tax rate and show the public what they can already do without the extra penny.
Former Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed nearly identical bills in 2024 and again in 2025. He called school construction a worthy cause but warned the statewide option could mean nearly $1.5 billion a year in new sales taxes with no required offsets. Some localities would have hit a combined sales-tax rate of eight percent. He also noted the money is fungible: even if the new penny is labeled for capital, it can free up other local dollars for operating costs. The authority only reached the ballot after he left office, when Democrat Governor Abigail Spanberger took office.
Virginians grow up hearing it: play the Lottery, help the schools. Since 2000, the state’s constitution has required lottery revenues to go into the Lottery Proceeds Fund for public education. Localities still have to meet their Standards of Quality share without substituting lottery dollars.
So does the Lottery fund schools? Yes. Recent appropriations put roughly $944 million in fiscal year 2025 and about $948 million in 2026 into that fund — roughly nine percent of the state education-assistance item.
The Lottery’s own Giving Back table shows proceeds as a share of Lottery-reported Sales: about 15.6 cents of each dollar of reported Sales in FY2025 and about 14 cents unofficial in FY2026. Prizes take the bulk. Playing Matters still uses the approximately 30 cents of every dollar spent line. That roughly 30-cent share matched the Lottery’s own Sales-to-Proceeds math before iLottery, around FY2011–2012. iLottery — the online and mobile instant-play platform — pays out a higher percentage in prizes than traditional draw games or scratchers, so the share of reported sales that reaches the education fund dropped even as total education dollars stayed in the $900 million range. The Lottery has not published the exact denominator for the 30-cent slogan.
Most of those dollars support operating programs: At-Risk Add-On, early reading, K-3 class-size reduction, school breakfast, algebra readiness. Unclaimed prizes feed the separate Literary Fund for construction loans (about $18 million in FY26). It is real education money. It is not a dedicated statewide checkbook that closes a multi-billion-dollar building backlog.
A 2021 joint Commission/Virginia Department of Education estimate put replacing more than a thousand schools older than 50 years near $25 billion. Cardinal News in September 2026 still counted 1,070 of 1,924 buildings (56 percent) over 50 years old. Even if all 47 localities had passed, one study put three-year revenue around $1.27 billion — real money, nowhere near the backlog.
Democrat Delegate Sam Rasoul of Roanoke, who helped put the authority in the budget, told the Virginia Mercury after the vote: “This isn’t going to be able to build all the schools that need to be built… So there’s a lot more that needs to be done … even at the state level to help struggling school divisions.”
Even the localities that said yes still face a large remaining gap. Richmond’s projection was in the hundreds of millions over the life of the tax. Chesterfield’s estimate was sixty-five to seventy million a year. Thirty-two communities told their boards to keep looking at existing revenue and priorities first.
Everybody talks about lowering taxes and fixing our schools. But when the bill comes due, where’s the actual plan? Virginia voters rejected the proposed school sales tax in 32 localities. That doesn’t make leaking roofs, aging buildings or construction costs disappear. Before asking taxpayers for another dollar, have local officials shown every alternative, every project cost and exactly where the existing money goes? That is the conversation the 32 no votes forced.
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