Senate Trims Scholarship Amounts – Or Not, If Enough Lottery Money Comes In

The Tennessee Senate voted tonight to cut some lottery scholarship awards in order to build up lottery reserves. But the measure has an escape clause that leaves the scholarships untouched, if the lottery continues to bring in additional money each year.

With lottery revenues showing a ten million dollar uptick this year, state senators agreed to a trigger clause– if lottery proceeds continue to grow at that ten million dollar rate for the next three years, the planned cutback doesn’t take affect.

Otherwise many students will have their award cut in half, from $4,000 a year to just $2,000.

Dresden Democrat Roy Herron railed against the bill, even with its escape clause. He says thousands of students from family with limited resources won’t be able to stay in school with only half a scholarship.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s gonna hurt. It makes a difference. It doesn’t make any difference to our children. Not a man or a woman in this room, it won’t affect a one of us, not a single one of us. But it will affect thousands of those we represent.”

Under the plan, students with a high college entrance exam and high grades would get the full amount. Students who only hit one of those marks would get a half-scholarship.

The original recommendation from a legislative task force to trim scholarships for lower performing students was bipartisan. But the matter has become a partisan battle this session with Republicans fighting to build up reserves and Democrats trying to avoid cutting scholarships.

WEB EXTRA
The bill, SB 2514 Gresham/HB 2649 H Brooks, the HOPE scholarship fix, passed the Senate 20-10.

The House version is still sitting in the House Education Committee. It was set on an agenda April 10, and that committee is still working on that list of bills.

With less discussion – and far less drama – the Senate also passed, 19-11, a more technical fix to the lottery. The second bill requires a particular shortfall cushion account in the lottery war chest to be set at $100 million. Today the floor is $50 million.

The bill, SB 2515 Gresham/ HB 2650 H Brooks, passed in the House, 73-18, in early March:
Fixing the Lottery Scholarship – One Sub-account at a Time

Sen. Gresham earlier agree to the “trigger” to un-do her lottery fix bill:
Bill to Cut Scholarships Gets an Automatic Self-Destruct Trigger