Prop. 10 Funds Go to Counties

California counties Monday received $362 million in proceeds from the Proposition 10 tax on tobacco products, but in Los Angeles County, debate continued over whether the supervisors are handcuffing the commission charged with spending the money on early childhood development.

Los Angeles County received $112 million, nearly one-third of the money generated so far by the initiative, which was championed by actor-director Rob Reiner. “We have hit the ground running,” an exuberant Reiner said at a news conference.

But Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, complained that some counties are running faster than others, with Los Angeles lagging behind. He accused county supervisors of hampering the Los Angeles Children and Families Commission, which the lawmakers appointed to determine how to spend the Proposition 10 funds.

“I think the county has done an abysmal job at really moving ahead to support the county commission,” he said after the news conference, where he had joined Reiner, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and others. “The board is trying to act as an officious intermeddler here,” he said.

Reiner said the Board of Supervisors has been reluctant to grant the commission full independence, largely out of concern over liability. State law dictates that the commissions, which are to be established in all 58 counties, are to be fully autonomous.

He predicted that the dispute would be ironed out. “Fifty-five of the counties are moving ahead . . . and Los Angeles County will be fine,” he said. “It’s just the most complex of the counties.”

No supervisors attended the news conference. Reached later, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky refused to respond to Villaraigosa’s criticism, but said he expected the board to leave the commission alone.

“I believe the way the act is written that they are independent,” he said. “I don’t believe in the end that they will be dependent on us for anything.”

The vice chairman of the county commission, Neal Kaufman, defended the panel against charges that it was moving too slowly to establish early childhood programs with the money it had received.

He said the commission didn’t want to act hastily, and hoped to establish programs that would take into account the likelihood that Proposition 10 funds would decline steadily as fewer Californians smoke.

“Los Angeles is a very, very complex county,” Kaufman said. “There are 150,000 pregnancies and deliveries every year [and] 700,000 to 800,000 kids under 5, and to really meet their needs requires some thought.”

He said the commission needs to determine ways in which early childhood programs will save money by reducing problems that might have occurred as the children aged. That could allow the county to free up money to support early childhood health and education as cigarette tax revenues decline.

The commission expects to develop a plan to spend the money by February, possibly sooner, he said.

Villaraigosa said that some counties, notably Alameda, are far ahead of Los Angeles in planning. But Reiner, Kaufman and others said that was to be expected, because Los Angeles County has a vastly larger and more diverse population than any other county.

After Los Angeles, the largest recipients of Proposition 10 money were Orange County, $32.9 million; San Diego County, $29.9 million; San Bernardino County, $19.6 million; Santa Clara County, $18.3 million; and Riverside County, $16.1 million.

Among other Southern California counties, Ventura received $7.8 million; Santa Barbara County, $4 million; and Imperial County, 1.6 million.