Tobacco Fund Compromise Seen

County officials and health-care advocates made substantial progress Thursday toward a compromise on sharing the county’s tobacco settlement windfall, according to several people who took part in the closed-door meeting.

The discussions concluded with county officials agreeing to draft a plan that would provide a significantly larger piece of the county’s tobacco money for health care projects but still preserve the Board of Supervisors’ goals of trimming debts and building more jails, they said.

The meeting comes a month after the board voted to allocate 20% of the $912 million the county expects to receive in the next 25 years to health programs, with the rest going to jails and debt service. Health-care advocates, however, have suggested that at least half the money go to health programs.

“This was real positive,” said Sheriff Mike Carona, who attended the meeting at the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana. “People are getting a better understanding” of each other’s needs.

Whatever plan comes out of the negotiations, which will resume in a week, will need approval from the Board of Supervisors. Up to now, they have resisted giving more money to health programs.

Members of the health-care community described the session as a breakthrough with both sides thinking creatively about how to share the money.

An early January deadline hovers over the negotiations. That’s when the California Medical Assn. must decide which of two initiatives restricting spending of tobacco settlement money it will circulate for signatures, said Sam Roth, spokesman for the Orange County Medical Assn., who attended the three-hour meeting.

One of the proposed initiatives would require the state to spend all of its $12.5 billion in tobacco settlement money on health care needs, while a second controls spending by the state as well as counties--including Orange County.

The physicians groups funding the two initiatives have said they will go forward with the county/state restrictions if Orange County supervisors do not reach agreement with the local health care community on spending the local share of the tobacco settlement money. “If we get an agreement, then we would signal Sacramento not to circulate the county version,” said Roth.

County Chief Financial Officer Gary Burton, who attended the Thursday session, will translate the discussion into a financial plan and present it to the supervisors on Monday.

“I think we had good discussion over a number of the issues,” he said. “I can’t say we made progress [because] I can’t make a commitment. I don’t get to vote. I can transmit this to the board and see what [supervisors] think. The question is do they want to modify [their existing plan] or not.”

The meeting went on far longer than participants had expected, with much of the progress taking place during the last two hours, after both sides had represented their positions and needs.

Carona apparently helped create the breakthrough when he suggested that money for the major expansion of the James A. Musick Branch Jail in Irvine need not necessarily come from tobacco funds. He did insist that a less costly expansion of the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange, which must start sooner, would still be paid for with tobacco money.

That change freed Burton to redistribute some of the money and gave him flexibility on choosing the length and payments for a proposed bond issue that is to pay for jail construction, said one participant who asked not to be named.

Health care advocates said the new proposal would provide a smaller share of the funds in the initial years for health care, in exchange for a larger payoff toward the end of the initial 25-year period of the tobacco settlement.

“I am cautiously optimistic that we are going to reach a compromise between the health care community, the supervisors and Sheriff Carona,” said State Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Garden Grove), who took part in the meeting.

In the coming weeks, the health care advocates must still detail how they would spend the funds.

Their priorities include: expanding the medical services for the indigent program; increasing operating hours of community clinics; improving enrollment in subsidized health care plans; increasing anti-smoking programs especially for teenagers; adding staff to the public health and school nurse programs; and increasing anti-violence and alcohol abuse prevention programs.

As part of the plan, Dunn said he would commit to finding state and federal funds to supplement money for construction at the Musick Jail and would support legislation the county needs to sell bonds to build the jail.