Auditor Merritt on Education

The Importance of Education

Our public schools should provide every child with the opportunity to obtain a first-rate education which ensures that they are prepared to enter college or the work force upon graduation.  To that end, our public education system has a duty to effectively and efficiently use the resources with which it is entrusted.  As State Auditor, Leslie Merritt is working to ensure that our schools' resources are utilized where they matter most:  empowering teachers to teach our children.  Our children are our future, and education is too important for us to not spend our education dollars wisely.

Auditor Merritt Took Action:  Accountability for the

N.C. Education Lottery

Those who supported the lottery and those who opposed its creation can all agree on one important point:  now that we have a lottery, its proceeds should go to education – as was promised.  When the lottery was enacted, State Auditor Leslie Merritt took action from day one to ensure that our state’s leaders keep their promises and direct lottery proceeds to education. 

The News & Record, January 15, 2006:  “Since he signed the lottery into law this past summer, Gov. Mike Easley has pledged that money from the state gambling enterprise will boost education spending, not merely replace tax dollars that would have otherwise gone to fund the schools. Making sure he keeps this promise should be easy, the result of a relatively simple algebra problem, the governor's office says.  But State Auditor Leslie Merritt isn't so sure.  He worries that without more preparation by both the auditor's and the governor's offices, state officials will be unable to say if or how lottery proceeds benefited the state's education programs.  Merritt wrote to Easley and legislative leaders in early December seeking help in ‘establishing a benchmark’ against which future education spending could be measured.”

Editorial, The News & Observer, February 15, 2006:  Lottery's promise:  The state auditor is right to hold leaders accountable for their promises of lottery money for education -- “The lottery law passed last summer included a promise that proceeds wouldn't replace other education revenue. Come to find out, though, authors of the budget bill deleted that promise, and it's the budget bill that counts.  The ray of hope in this maddening turn of events is State Auditor Les Merritt's insistence on the facts. Merritt has been pressing the Easley administration for an indisputable record of current spending, information that is necessary to ensure lottery proceeds will be additional resources for education.”

Editorial, The News & Record, February 16, 2006:  “It might require sharp eyes to make sure it's [the lottery] used as intended, however. One pair belongs to State Auditor Les Merritt, who said he wants to devise an accounting system to track education spending.  Dan Gerlach, the governor's budget director, answered that no complicated accounting measures are needed. It's only necessary to look at the total amount of money spent for education to make sure it's increasing.  Merritt's approach is better.”

Leslie Merritt:  Former PTA President 

Leslie Merritt’s most important involvement with our public schools has been as a student and later as a parent.  “If it had not been for the involvement and encouragement of my teachers, I would never have left the family farm in Sampson County to attend college,” says Merritt.  His two children attended and graduated from North Carolina’s public schools.  Merritt was actively involved in his children's education and served as PTA president at Zebulon Elementary School. 

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