ROYAL OAK – Democrat Gary Peters touts his management of the Michigan Lottery, but his actual record as Lottery Commissioner shows a tenure of higher costs, support for a plan to divert even more funding from schools and a controversial proposal that would have put nine new casinos and 18,000 new slot machines in Michigan.
“There are a whole LOTTO reasons to say no to LOTTO-man Gary Peters,” said Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saulius “Saul” Anuzis. “When Gary Peters was Lottery Commissioner, administrative costs skyrocketed while the percentage of lottery profits going to schools decreased. The very record Peters is running on is one of higher costs, less lottery money for schools and support for an explosion of gambling in Michigan.”
While Peters was Michigan Lottery Commissioner, administrative costs increased 28-percent while payments to schools decreased from 36.5-percent of lottery revenues to 33.1-percent. In addition, in 2004, Peters supported the largest proposed gambling expansions in Michigan history that would have created nine new casinos and 18,000 slot machines.
Peters’ radical plan to expand gambling in Michigan also would have diverted more than 90-percent of the profits from the lottery casinos and lottery slot machines away from our schools and into the coffers of special interests and the rest of the state’s general fund. Fortunately, Michigan voters rejected this lottery scheme, but had it passed, the Peters’ plan would have siphoned off $360 million in money that otherwise would have gone to schools.
“The promise of the Lottery funding schools is bunk and under Peters tenure an even lesser percentage of lottery profits went to schools,” Anuzis said. “If Peters put our school funding at risk while he was Lottery Commissioner, think of what he will do with our tax dollars if he is in Congress.”
