Pack Tax: Stay on Target

This month the state began collecting a 50-cent-a-pack cigarette tax, as required by Proposition 10, to finance early childhood development programs in schools, health clinics and other community settings. The proposition’s backers deftly deflected charges that the tax would bloat state bureaucracy by calling for 80% of the revenues to be handed over to county commissions.

The hard truth, however, is that many counties--especially Los Angeles--are not so much the innovative, grass-roots collectives they were portrayed to be in the Proposition 10 campaign. Rather, many are machines crafted to funnel money into existing social services.

Generating new money to be spent in old ways was not why this newspaper and a majority of Californians endorsed Proposition 10. The initiative’s key strength was its promise to establish innovative programs to correct an imbalance in public spending that medical research has made increasingly clear: Though nearly 90% of brain growth occurs during a child’s first three years of life, only 4% of public spending on children is earmarked for those years.

Proposition 10 is expected to generate $750 million in its early years, and the state commission that Gov. Gray Davis and the state Legislature are now forming must ensure that counties use their revenues to live up to the initiative’s original promise.

The state commission cannot tell counties how to distribute their money. But it can exert formidable influence in directing counties to programs that have proved their ability to help prepare and educate preschoolers.

Rob Reiner, the actor and Proposition 10 co-sponsor who is expected to be named state commission chairman, has said the initiative will virtually police itself because of a requirement for public audits of programs. But counties will be auditing themselves using largely subjective accountability measures. The state commission will have to keep a close, objective eye on them, helping them identify programs that can deliver useful services not already funded through existing programs like Early Head Start. That’s why the Legislature and governor’s office, which are now appointing the six members who will join Reiner on the state commission, ought to name experienced professionals with backgrounds in child development and administration.

Before Proposition 10 funds can begin flowing to counties, state commission members are required by law to hire a staff, draft a governing plan and submit the plan for public comments before adopting it. That means counties may have to wait until this fall before they can apply for funds.

Nevertheless, the struggles within counties over who gets to determine how those funds will be spent are already escalating. For example, after Los Angeles County leaders asked state officials last week to allow them to use Proposition 10 money to extend health coverage to low-income children, county welfare directors across the state objected, arguing for funds to boost school-based programs for child abuse prevention and education.

County commissions, which are just now being formed, must think twice before funneling money into aging warhorses. They need to work hard to remain true to the principle that made the proposition victorious: finding innovative ways to help parents and educators prepare children for learning in their early, impressionable years.