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Watauga County Schools Received $280,000 in Construction Funds from NC Lottery

By Nathan Ham

Schools in all 100 counties received a total of $217 million from the North Carolina Education lottery to support school construction projects. This is an increase of $87 million from last year.

According to Garrett Price, the Director of Communications for Watauga County Schools, the county received $280,000 in lottery construction funds for the 2018-19 fiscal year.

The board of education allocated $185,000 of that to installing new double entry vestibules at each of the elementary schools in the county. The remaining $85,000 went to upgraded access control systems at school facilities that included improved security video coverage and new visitor management systems that require each visitor to have photo identification when visiting a school.

Last year, legislators put together a new needs-based grant program that is funded exclusively by lottery dollars that is used to provide need building and construction funds for smaller, rural counties across North Carolina.

Overall, the North Carolina Education Lottery raised $670 million for the 2018 fiscal year, the highest amount to date.