WEST virginia legislature

2019 regular session

Introduced

Senate Bill 112

By Senators Stollings, Jeffries, Lindsay, and Baldwin

[Introduced January 9, 2019; Referred
to the Committee on Finance]

A BILL making a supplementary appropriation of public moneys out of the Treasury from the balance of moneys remaining as an unappropriated surplus balance in the State Fund, General Revenue, to the Department of Health and Human Resources, Division of Health – Central Office, fund 0407, fiscal year 2019, organization 0506, by supplementing and amending the appropriations for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019.

 Whereas, The state budget that became law without the Governor’s signature for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, contained no funding for the Tobacco Education Program; and

Whereas, The Division of Tobacco Prevention, which manages the Tobacco Education Program, saw its efforts result in a drop in the percentage of West Virginians who smoke from 28.6 percent in 2011 to 24.8 percent in 2016, according to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey; and

Whereas, The Division of Tobacco Prevention and the Tobacco Education Program is responsible for major funding for the RAZE program, which is West Virginia’s only teen-led and teen-implemented anti-tobacco movement that has contributed to a 32 percent drop in high school smoking and a 19 percent drop in spit-tobacco use among high school boys since 1999, according to the American Lung Association in West Virginia; and

Whereas, The Division of Tobacco Prevention operates the no-cost tobacco cessation quit line services that have contributed greatly to the reduction in smoking among teens and adults; and

Whereas, Because the budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018, contained no funding for the Tobacco Education Program, there has been a significant delay in getting a RAZE contract agreement in place to continue the program, meaning that youth and schools missed out on tobacco prevention education during the first half of the 2017-18 school year; and

Whereas, RAZE, in particular, and the Tobacco Education Program, in general, are crucial to the efforts to continue to reduce tobacco usage and help make West Virginia a healthier state; and

Whereas, West Virginia will collect more than $300 million in revenue this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but has allocated zero dollars to tobacco prevention for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2019; and

Whereas, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends West Virginia spend $27.4 million on tobacco prevention programs, and

Whereas, West Virginia should strive to continue our trend toward reducing tobacco use and becoming a healthier state to live in by funding the Tobacco Education Program this fiscal year and into the future; therefore

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

Title II – Appropriations.

Section 1. Appropriations from general revenue.

 DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN RESOURCES.

56 – Division of Health

Central Office

(WV Code Chapter 16)

Fund 0407 FY 2017 Org 0506

                                                                                                                                               General

                                                                                                            Appro-                             Revenue

                                                                                                           priation                         Fund

 

25a Tobacco Education Program – Surplus (R)................................ 90600          $          1,500,000

 

NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide funding for tobacco prevention in FY2019 after  Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from a heading or the present law and underscoring indicates new language that would be added. The FY2018 budget bill cut all funding to the tobacco education program.