Lawmakers find funding lode in tobacco money
Jump to full article: Durango (CO) Herald, 2009-06-01
Author: Dale Rodebaugh Herald Staff Writer
Intro: 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What's more, state legislators repealed a 50-year-old sales-tax exemption on cigarettes, a move that's worth about $30 million a year.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 . . .
"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."
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