CICP News & Updates

Carol D’Amico is President and CEO of Conexus Indiana, the state’s advanced manufacturing and logistics initiative.

Yesterday, our friends at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce released another in its series of “Letters to our Leaders,” providing policy advice to our gubernatorial candidates.  The latest deals with workforce development and the idea of funding training and education programs through private management of the Hoosier Lottery.  We agree.

Building a 21^st century workforce must be a top priority for all of us – the private sector, policymakers, philanthropic and civic organizations alike.  CICP and Conexus Indiana have put human capital squarely on our agenda, and recognize how an educated workforce moves the needle on economic development (see ‘The Power of Human Capital,’ below).

We also feel that private management of the Lottery is a common-sense way to generate much-needed funds for workforce efforts without raising taxes.  Frankly, government shouldn’t be in the gambling business in the first place – and as it stands, 85% of the Lottery’s operations are already executed by private contractors.  Turning the final 15% over to a private manager would net the state as much as $2 billion to invest in our most valuable resource – our people – while realizing a $200 million annual payment over the life of the contract to meet existing obligations.

Such a new revenue source could provide the funds necessary to help move more young people into the higher education pipeline, building our future workforce, as well as addressing the critical need to retrain our incumbent workers.

Some worry that private management of the Lottery is tantamount to a further expansion of gambling.   Under the legislation considered last session, at least, the private manager was specifically prohibited from expanding the menu of lottery games.  It should also be noted that Hoosiers spend less on our lottery than the average American.  We rank 26^th among the 41 states with lotteries in per capita spending ($118 per person).  All adjacent states rank higher in lottery spending, from $135 per person in Illinois to $195 in Michigan…new management would certainly be incentivized to market the lottery aggressively, but it’s unlikely to turn Hoosiers into a pack of gambling addicts.

It’s the very mention of “privatization” that has made this measure controversial.  Well, privatization isn’t a four-letter word – but “grow” is.  It’s a word that summarizes what’s good about the lottery proposal – growing our skilled workforce, growing the career options available to Hoosiers with more education, growing our economy.