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Smoke ... and mirrors
Money disappearing for smoking-cessation programs in county, school district
Herald Staff Writer
M. SPENCER GREEN/AP
Lawmakers find funding lode in tobacco money
By Dale Rodebaugh
Herald Staff Writer
In order to balance the coming year’s budget, which begins July 1, Colorado lawmakers transferred to the general fund $20 million from the reserve created by Amendment 35 for tobacco education and treatment, and $11.8 million from the 1998 national tobacco lawsuit settlement.
What’s more, state legislators repealed a 50-year-old sales-tax exemption on cigarettes, a move that’s worth about $30 million a year. The sales tax is 2.9 percent.
Under the 1998 agreement, states are able to use the national tobacco lawsuit funds however they see fit.
The settlement between the federal government and tobacco companies provided $206 billion over 25 years to states for anti-smoking programs, with each state’s share based on its percentage of the national population – not on the number of cigarettes sold.
By some calculations, Colorado is being shortchanged because instead of the 1.15 percent it received under the original, locked-in formula, the state by July 2008 calculations has 1.164 percent of the total population (5 million out of a total of 304 million).
By 2005, Colorado had received $572 million from the 1998 settlement.
Amendment 35, which won a “yes” vote from more than
61 percent of voters, generates $175 million a year in new revenue by increasing the excise tax on cigarettes by 64 cents (for a total of 84 cents) and raising the excise tax on cigars and chewing tobacco 20 percent.
Forty-six percent of Amendment 35 revenue was to be spent on the Child Health Plan Plus and Medicaid; 19 percent on primary health care through community clinics; 16 percent on tobacco education, prevention and cessation programs; 16 percent on early detection of cancer and cardiovascular disease; and 3 percent for state, county and city government health programs.
The state was allowed some wiggle room, however. Amendment 35 allowed revenue to be transferred from the designated purposes if two-thirds of the Legislature declared a fiscal emergency.
This year, legislators did just that.
Look no further than Colorado, where legislators, in order to balance the 2009-10 budget, took almost $32 million of anti-tobacco money plus $30 million more generated by repealing the sales-tax exemption on cigarettes.
There will be increased health-care costs in so many ways when young people take up smoking and adults don't stay quit.
- Char Day, southwest regional director, Lasso Tobacco Coalition
The news is as welcome as second-hand smoke to anti-tobacco advocates in La Plata County.
"We learned this week that we'll receive $249,000 this year - 3.5 percent less than last year," said Char Day, the southwest regional director of the eight-county Lasso Tobacco Coalition.
"We'll find a way to deal with it, but it's so shortsighted," Day said. "There will be increased health-care costs in so many ways when young people take up smoking and adults don't stay quit."
The coalition covers Archuleta, La Plata, Montezuma, San Juan, Ouray, Dolores, Gunnison and Delta counties.
In La Plata County, the work of anti-tobacco groups reduced the number of adult smokers from 25 percent in 2003 to
17 percent today, Day said. The statistics don't include teens younger than 18, she said. The result of those efforts could be lost, Day said.
Coalition funding comes from revenue generated by Amendment 35, a 2004 state ballot measure that won no-doubt-about-it approval to fund specific health-related projects. Voters supported the amendment because of the designated spending, Day said.
"I'd challenge legislators to find other ways to erase the deficit," she said.
Jenny Pritchard, health education coordinator for Durango School District 9-R, said the high-jacking of tobacco money by legislators will affect the district.
"We will see a diminished amount," Pritchard said Thursday.
Pritchard said 9-R probably will seek an extension of a three-year state grant for anti-tobacco programs when it expires June 30 - but without great enthusiasm. The district has learned that new grants will be for one year and will offer $20,000 to $25,000 - compared with $58,000 in 2006-07, $60,000 the next year and $54,000 this year. Greater competition for less money makes the payoff hardly worth the time and effort required to apply, she said.
"But we are going to apply for grants through the Colorado Department of Education," Pritchard said. "Funding seems to go in cycles, what with the economy and budget crises. We just hope it will come back."
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