A recent legal settlement with tobacco companies potentially could add millions in new funding for Idaho’s youth drug prevention efforts. Lawmakers are just beginning to sketch out specifics.
In April, the Idaho Attorney General’s office settled a lawsuit with tobacco companies, adding $74 million to the pot. However, 80% of that money goes to an endowment fund that lawmakers can’t appropriate.
Legislators will only be able to touch a fraction of the remaining 20% of the settlement.
Rep. Marco Erickson (R-Idaho Falls) presented a list of potential funding increases to the Joint Millennium Fund Committee Monday, bringing the total budget to about $19 million for youth drug prevention.
Erickson said many of the proposals would boost money for current initiatives, like anti-drug campaigns, school resource officers and drug treatment counseling.
Still, he said that money won’t be enough to cover everything needed to address youth substance abuse.
“If it were up to me and I had endless money, I would probably fund every school in the state fully to have a coordinator and a person in-place to do drug prevention. It’s just not possible with the amount of funding this committee has.”
One of the committee’s co-chairs, Sen. Van Burtenshaw (R-Terreton), said he’s not opposed to spending more money. But the proposed price tag is a more than 70% increase over this year’s budget of roughly $11 million.
“I would take slower steps moving forward and I’d be cautious with how I spent that money,” Burtenshaw said.
Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking (D-Boise) pushed back, saying the legislature has “dropped the ball” when it comes to protecting children from drugs.
“I think we have punted this down the road as far as we can go and it’s time to really get aggressive and make sure our children are on the right path,” Ward-Engelking said.
The committee plans to meet again in December to further review the proposals.
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