The first tobacco settlement check is in the mail. But where will it and millions of dollars in future checks land?
Education? Anti-smoking programs? Children's health care? The general fund?Members of the Legislature's Health and Human Services Interim Committee had no definitive answers to those questions. They do, however, favor placing at least 25 percent of the funds -- initially $41 million for fiscal 2000 -- into an ongoing endowment fund.
Utah Attorney General Jan Graham announced last Friday the first tobacco settlement installment, $10.9 million, will arrive in a matter of days. Utah was one of dozens of states that banded together to successfully sue big tobacco companies over the cost of treating tobacco-related health problems. The state is in line for more than $1 billion in the next 25 years.
The committee discussed Wednesday four of the dozen or so bills that lawmakers may consider in the 2000 Legislature. None drew ringing endorsements, though legislators liked some of the ideas presented.
Rep. Lamont Tyler, R-East Millcreek, said it's premature for the committee to support bills that lock up the money.
Committee co-chairman Sen. Robert Montgomery, R-North Ogden, says the dollars should be spent on one-time projects.
"The settlement monies are precarious, and a lot things could happen to them," he said.
He and Rep. Carl Saunders, R-Ogden, committee co-chairman, favor a bill that would send $5.5 million to the Children's Health Insurance Program. The measure, however, would not eliminate the hospital tax that currently funds CHIP. The bill would keep it in place should tobacco money dry up, Saunders said.
Dave Gessel, a Utah Hospital Association attorney, said he was "flabbergasted" that this version of the bill did not wipe out the "sick tax" as did an earlier one. Hospitals were promised three years ago that the tax was temporary. Gessel threatened to use it as a hammer on legislators in the coming months.
"It is a poor tax. Do you want us to go to your constituents and say you voted for a sick tax?" he said.
Saunders' bill also would place $18 million of the initial tobacco installment into an interest-bearing school trust lands fund. In 25 years, provided the money is still flowing, the account could contain as much as $400 million.
The Utah Department of Health and the state Department of Human Services would get $4 million each for tobacco and drug prevention and anti-violence programs.
The remaining $10 million would go to the state's general fund, according to the proposal. Some lawmakers on the health and human services committee want to donate a portion of the money to the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Montgomery suggested it be used to cover budgetary "hot spots" or health-related issues.
"A lot of this will be chewed up and spit out and in the final outcome might be a lot different," Saunders said.
Rep. Karen Morgan, D-Sandy, floated her own bill calling for 25 percent or up to $8.5 million to go to a tobacco prevention campaign. Advocates of anti-smoking programs have asked for as much as $17 million. Morgan said his proposal is a compromise.