Putnam County Board of Education calling on state legislators to amend the Tennessee State Constitution to allow school-affiliated organizations to hold raffles for fundraising.
Board Member Kim Cravens said the current legal framework makes it nearly impossible for small school groups to host simple raffles without facing significant bureaucratic hurdles. Cravens said the board is approving a resolution to request a constitutional amendment to Article 11, Section 5, which would create an exception for educational groups.
“All we want is for our groups in our schools, so associated with education, can have a raffle of some sort,” Cravens said. “If I want to donate a Yeti cooler so my daughter’s cheer team could raffle off a cooler to make money, we want that to happen.”
Cravens said the process currently requires organizations to be a 501c3 non-profit and apply for approval over a year in advance. Cravens said many parent-teacher organizations and school support groups do not have that federal designation, making common events like 50-50 raffles at basketball games or cake walks technically illegal.
“It’s very frustrating to me that it’s taking this long to do something,” Cravens said. “I said if they want to give money to all of our groups we’ll happily take their money and if not then give us a way to go make money because it’s an easy thing to do is have a raffle.”
Board members said the state already allows a lottery and online gambling, making the prohibition on school raffles appear inconsistent. Board Member Mr. King said that while local legislators support the change, the proposal often stalls in the state legislature because only a limited number of constitutional amendments can be considered each year.
“The whole reason this was put in the constitution back in probably what I don’t know this was like the late 80s early 90s, was to prohibit that and they’ve now made exceptions and we want an exception so that this can happen in our school system,” Cravens said. “I think it’s an easy way for groups can raise some money and we get our hands slapped a lot down here.”
Cravens said the board has been advocating for this change for at least five years. Cravens said the district will now ask the Tennessee School Boards Association to sponsor the resolution so that school boards across the state can vote to make it part of their collective legislative agenda in the spring.
“We trying and maybe with persistence we can get this done,” Cravens said.
The board passed the resolution unanimously.
