Minnesota voters to decide if lottery money will continue to fund state's environment fund
ST. PAUL, Minn. — When you buy your lottery tickets you may be dreaming of a big win, but lottery players have been delivering $1 billion worth of big wins to the Minnesota environment for the last 30 years.
Forty percent of lottery proceeds go to the state Environment and National Resources Trust Fund, which funds projects like Dakota County's Thompson Park.
"All over the state, every corner of the state, if you are a Minnesotan, if you walked on a trail, if you swam in a lake, you have been a beneficiary of this funding," Marcus Starr said.
The author of the amendment says it is time for it to be renewed.
"The reason it's on the ballot this year is that every 25 years it comes back up, and we have to reaffirm that is, in fact, what we want to do with that lottery money," Rep. Athena Hollins said.
If you go and vote and decide to skip the constitutional amendment question, your vote will be counted as an automatic no.
Hollins says her bill passed the legislature with bipartisan support
"The money is distributed in a bipartisan way, and it really impacts Greater Minnesota and rural Minnesota, disproportionately more than the metro area," Hollins said. "No matter who you vote for on the top of the ticket, this is something that Minnesotans really care about. We want to make sure this funding continues for our great outdoors."
If the amendment gets voted down, the money will go back into the state's general fund.