When it comes to the state legislature, the saying is that lawmakers there have to be reminded that the mountains are part of North Carolina. The budget that just passed provides ample fodder for those who believe that to be true, and the clearest example is the failure to fix the lottery funding formula.

This is a critical issue for this region, but apparently that doesn’t matter to those in the halls of the General Assembly who represent other parts of the state. The other disheartening truth that the lottery funding formula reveals is that the power of the Western North Carolina delegation in Raleigh is not sufficiently strong to make demands and have them met.

What transpired Monday (July 7) in the General Assembly is a better deal for WNC school systems than the original lottery formula, but it is still patently unfair.

The lottery funding formula is complicated, but here’s where WNC gets cheated. Forty percent of lottery revenues go toward school construction. Of that amount, the architects of the lottery bill decided that 65 percent would go to systems based on a per-pupil basis, which is the fairest way to distribute the money. The other 35 percent would be divided based on property tax rate. Those counties with a higher-than-average property tax rate, supposedly the poorest counties, got all of the other 35 percent.

Every WNC county has a lower-than-average property tax rate, so we get less money for school construction. Fifty-three school systems in the state fall into this category. Yet several of the counties who do get that money are designated by the state Department of Commerce as better off economically than counties in WNC.

In other words, the property tax rate formula is a poor measure of which counties deserve more lottery money. Cumberland County, home to Fayetteville and Ft. Bragg, gets the money while Swain County doesn’t. Mecklenburg County, which is where Charlotte is located, gets the money while Jackson County doesn’t.

This year WNC lawmakers promised to try and fix the formula, but the temporary plan did not go far enough.

The new budget only gets the cheated districts more money if lottery tickets sales meet projected sales increases. That rarely happens in this state, so immediately the prospect of getting more money is questionable.

According to news reports in several state newspapers, the revised formula works like this: lottery officials project sales will hit $386 million this year, a 10 percent hike over 2007. If those projections are reached, the school districts who have been shortchanged will get $14 million in extra school construction money. That means spending in the WNC districts would go to $98 per student, while those in the counties perceived as poor will get $110 per student.

The original House budget proposal this year would have equalized the formula, but once it got to the Senate it ran into a roadblock. Budget leaders there decided it was more important to keep the lottery reserves flush instead of equitably distributing the lottery money to counties who need new schools and build renovations every bit as much as those who are getting a larger share of the money.

It’s just not fair, and WNC lawmakers need to make sure legislative leaders know they are not happy with a compromise that shortchanges our students and those who work in the schools. Basically, what we have is a promise that the distribution of lottery money will still fall short of being fair even if sales increase.

That’s just not a good deal for WNC school systems.