ATLANTA -- Turns out the budget for education expenses was richer than reality.
The Governor's Office says lottery revenues continue to fall short of expected revenue despite that fact that ticket sales are up in the first quarter of this year.
"We budgeted more revenue than we are now expecting to receive," said Governor Nathan Deal's spokesman, Brian Robinson. "We budgeted $903 million in the fiscal year 2012 budget. Fiscal year 2011 lottery deposits to education were $846 million."
11Alive started digging into lottery revenue because of cuts to the Pre-K program. $54 million was cut to make up for falling lottery tickets sales in fiscal year 2011, which ended in June. That caused an exodus of experienced educators from the program.
So how did we get here?
Things started going in the wrong direction in the fiscal year of 2011: Total revenue: $3,597,222,000, down $48,175,000 from the year before, or 1 percent.