Spend, but Spend Wisely

What could be easier than spending money? Most Ventura County residents have plenty of experience at that--and public officials have more practice than most.

But when the Board of Supervisors set out to spend the $260 million the county is due to collect from a legal settlement with the tobacco industry, it ran into trouble. By discussing spending that money on something other than health care it opened the door for a ballot-initiative scheme that just might divert the whole windfall into private hands.

And when the same board set up an independent commission to oversee spending of $11.7 million per year in state cigarette taxes collected under Proposition 10, questions were raised about the panelists’ lack of ethnic diversity and the appearance of political cronyism.

We are pleased that the Children and Families First Commission addressed those concerns when it selected its first executive director. Claudia Harrison, 47, spent the past six years as director of business development at Blue Cross of California in Newbury Park, where she oversaw development of new opportunities for the uninsured and created health and wellness programs. She also managed the insurer’s participation in a pair of state programs, Access for Infants and Mothers and the Major Risk Medical Insurance Program.

Harrison, one of 16 applicants for the post, also has three years of experience organizing public-private partnerships in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish. That won’t make up for the absence of Latino voices on the commission itself but it should help assure use of the funds to benefit all of Ventura County’s children. So should the inclusion of Latino educators on the commission’s advisory committees.

The Children and Families First Commission was created last year after voters in 1998 approved Proposition 10, which added a 50-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes to pay for health programs for children. That ongoing income stream “is a chance to truly make a difference in the lives of young people,” Harrison told The Times. “I look forward to working with the diverse community in Ventura County.”

Right now the commission is reviewing applications to decide who will receive about $2 million in grants. Applications are due next month and are available on the Web site, https://www.vcchildren.org.

Although not officially part of county government, the commission is chaired by Supervisor Kathy Long, and its nine members include county Human Services Agency Director Barbara Fitzgerald, county Health Officer Robert Levin, county Supt. of Schools Charles Weis and county Work / Family Coordinator Debbie Bergevin.

The tobacco settlement funds and the tobacco-tax money have little in common other than their source and the fact that each offers the opportunity for Ventura County to provide better health care to its residents than would otherwise be possible. We urge close scrutiny of the way both of these windfalls are used.

Without it, as every experienced spender knows, money has a way of evaporating without doing much good.