Tobacco Funds Will Go to Medicare Repayment

Saying the mentally ill will suffer if health care funds are drained, the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to use tobacco settlement money to help lift the county out of a financial crisis sparked by years of bungled Medicare billing practices.

“It would not be wise to penalize our patients for a situation we had been living with for 10 years,” Supervisor Judy Mikels said.

The county was ordered to repay $15.3 million in Medicare reimbursements to the federal government in August. The order came after federal auditors discovered a decade of faulty billing practices in the county’s mental health department.

Despite requests that the money be used for badly needed services, supervisors on Tuesday decided to use all the tobacco settlement money the county received this year--$3 million--for the first of five annual Medicare payments.

“I agree with Supervisor Mikels, we must move on,” said Supervisor Kathy Long, who had earlier suggested that some of the settlement money go toward a regional homeless shelter. “It would be wrong for us to turn around and harm the [mentally ill] clients.”

Supervisor Frank Schillo cast the sole dissenting vote.

“There’s no way I can support this motion,” Schillo said.

Ventura County is one of many counties that will benefit from the $206-billion settlement between major tobacco companies and the 46 states that sued them to recover the cost of treating ill smokers.

The first annual payment was slightly over $3 million. Next fiscal year, the county is expected to receive $8 million and then $10 million each year until 2025.