New Jersey State Lottery receipts slumped to $937 million for the 12 months ended June 30 — falling 11.6% from the year-ago period and coming up short for anticipated contributions to the state's pension system.
The lottery is a state pension system asset, and it was expected to produce — prior to the economic damage from the coronavirus outbreak — about $1 billion of the expected $3.75 billion in state payments to the pension system for the 12 months ended June 30.
The state made regularly scheduled payments every three months, including the most recent June 30 payment of $684.16 million. The state, however, won't use general revenues to cover the shortfall in lottery proceeds.
The lottery data was part of a July 17 announcement by the state Department of the Treasury that revenue collections are down 9.2% to $29.8 billion for the 12 months ended June 30 vs. the year-ago
The anticipated $3.75 billion state payment represented 70% of the actuarial determined contribution to the pension system. New Jersey has followed a formula of increasing its pension contributions by 10 percentage points of the ADC each fiscal year.
The 80% formula calls for a total payment — from the lottery and general revenue — of $4.6 billion for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 and ends June 30, 2021.