Governor Bredesen visited Knoxville and Chattanooga today to promote his pre-kindergarten program and to try to build support for siphoning monies from the lottery as “excess,” a move which could damage or destroy the HOPE scholarship program. In 2003, Governor Bredesen wielded his influence with the legislature to reduce the HOPE scholarship amounts based on his estimates that the Lottery would not produce enough revenue to cover full scholarships.
Senator Steve Cohen (D-Memphis), a part-time legislator, spent the early part of his day in Memphis tending to personal and business affairs and the latter part of the day in Nashville as a state senator. In response to Governor Bredesen’s proposal to use Lottery funds for pre-k while HOPE recipients receive only partial scholarships, Senator Cohen said, “The Legislature promised that the lottery funds would be used first for college scholarships and that they would be full scholarships, not partial scholarships. The voters approved this and the legislature should not break that promise. We need to make the scholarships whole as in Georgia. I wrote the word ‘excess’ in the Constitution so that the money could not be grabbed for a pet project, no matter how good the project.”
Cohen continued, “I wish I had the public resources to tour the state so that Tennesseans realize the impact of the Governor’s proposal. The administration is painting me as an opponent of pre-kindergarten,” said Senator Cohen. “It seems quite similar to what they are doing to Gordon Bonnyman on TennCare. I have been a strong supporter of pre-k long before Phil Bredesen assumed the office of governor. I was honored to be one of twelve legislators chosen to attend a seminar for southern legislative leaders at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2001. One of the teaching programs was for North Carolina’s pre-k program called Smart Start. It was then I took up pre-kindergarten as a cause. It is my interest in pre-k which made it part of the Constitution, equal to capital school funding and after school programs as a recipient of ‘excess’ funds. I believe that lottery funds will eventually be available for pre-k but Tennessee needs a mature lottery before making more promises it can’t keep.”
“A pre-kindergarten program in Tennessee will cost $200-250 million,” Cohen continued. “It could be funded entirely by increasing the tobacco tax by 50 cents, which would still be below the national average for tobacco taxation. Such tax could be instituted incrementally by 10 cents a year and provide pre-kindergarten a funding source which is constant and dedicated, just as the HOPE scholarships program has a constitutionally constant, dedicated funding source in lottery proceeds. Excess money can go to pre-k, after school programs and capital construction for k-12.
“However, to declare excess on a recurring basis, which the governor is proposing for pre-k, is not in keeping with the constitutional provision of what excess funds are as excess funds cannot be projected on a recurring basis. The only way to assure that those excess funds exist each year is to restrict the HOPE scholarship program from growing as it should—to the level at which the panel of education experts recommended and the Senate passed in 2003.
“The original enacting legislation, prior to the Governor’s intervention, provided $4,000 per student and an additional $2,000 additional to the best and brightest as well as the neediest. Lottery monies are also needed for transfer students, high school students who take a year off before going to college, military families, and a potential grace period for students to earn the scholarships back. All of the aforementioned have been requested by Tennessee citizens and are parts of bills that Representative Chris Newton and I are sponsoring which need to be enacted for the benefit of the HOPE scholarship program, which is the greatest benefit offered middle-class Tennesseans.
“Including those students who were not in the original Lottery legislation will keep the best and brightest in our state and make college education affordable.”
Senator Cohen is the long-time sponsor of lottery legislation and is the first person in the United States to initiate a state lottery without holding the office of governor.