The North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL) recently transferred $99.4 million to the State Education Lottery Fund.

The fund supports the education initiatives that it serves, including teacher salaries for kindergarten through third grade, school construction projects, the More At Four preschool program for at-risk 4-year-olds and college scholarships based on financial need.

The Education Lottery now has contributed $1.655 billion to education in North Carolina since the lottery was launched in March 2006, a news release said. As of Sept. 30, overall sales have surpassed $5.23 billion.

The transfer included $97,299,888 of net revenues from lottery sales during the first quarter of the fiscal year and $2,083,590 in unclaimed prize money during that time.

"Our mission is to raise money for education so we're always pleased to transfer our net proceeds to the State Education Fund," said Alice Garland, acting director of the NCEL. "These proceeds, added to the money paid out to our prize winners and what our retailers earn for selling lottery tickets, means that 95 cents of every dollar spent on the lottery stays in North Carolina."

The Lottery Act designates that 50 percent of proceeds is split between teacher salaries in grades K-3 and the More At Four program, 40 percent goes to school construction and 10 percent to college scholarships.

A new report provides a breakdown of how those lottery proceeds were distributed in fiscal year 2010. Overall, lottery proceeds represent about 5.6 percent of the state's $7.8 billion public education budget.