Make slots pay

If you're confused over the vote on constitutional Amendment 4, which will allow slot machines at some South Florida racetracks, you're not alone. The amendment was failing by thousands of votes on election night. But a late-counted batch of South Florida ballots put it into the "yes" column just past the margin that would trigger an automatic recount. Suspicious, the group that opposed the measure statewide is considering ways it might contest the final tally. But let's assume the election was on the up-and-up. Let's go further and assume that South Florida voters will be just as eager to pass the local referendums required before the slots start rolling. Those could be on the ballot as soon as March. What happens then? What should happen is the Legislature makes it a priority to wring every possible dime of state revenue from the blight that's about to infest the state and to show unprecedented fiscal restraint in spending that money on education, as promised. The amendment requires that any state revenue raised by slot-machine taxes goes into education. But voters have been down this road before with the state lottery, which was also supposed to go to education. In the years since the lottery passed, Florida's national ranking in per-capita education spending has actually dropped, to the point where the state is now close to the bottom of the pile. Amendment 4 has no more teeth than the lottery amendment did. After 2006, there's nothing to stop lawmakers from taking the new slot-machine money in with great fanfare, while quietly siphoning off other revenue from the schools. This spring, the Legislature should look for ways to ensure that this doesn't happen. The Florida School Boards Association and the state teachers union were persuaded to support the amendment after being promised a minimum $500 million-per-year boost from the slots. That's based on a 30 percent tax rate. But why stop there? Half the lottery revenues go to education. Why not half the slot-machine take? State lawmakers also need to work on a plan to deal with other anticipated costs. Expanding gambling is a costly enterprise, with well-established links to increased poverty, addiction and mental illness. Somebody's going to have to pay that tab, and it seems fair that the big-money casino interests behind Amendment 4 be asked to chip in. Finally -- and this might be the toughest task of all -- lawmakers need to identify a way to keep the machines from spreading to other parts of the state, especially Central Florida, where an expansion of gambling would threaten the family-based tourism that is this area's lifeblood. Casino advocates have spent a lot of money convincing Floridians to view gambling as a safe bet. It's up to lawmakers to make sure they make good on that promise