Article published June 26, 2008
With funding gone, Ohio tobacco prevention jobs go up in smoke
By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF
COLUMBUS - Katy Ruby is losing her job in the name of job creation.
The 24-year-old Norwalk woman's tobacco prevention specialist's job with the American Lung Association will disappear Monday because of the state's decision to divert $230 million in anti-tobacco funds to a $1.57 billion economic stimulus package.
"It doesn't seem very effective to me," Ms. Ruby said. "The jobs that are being created are in such different fields that they will not help me at all."
Ms. Ruby works out of the association's northwest Ohio regional office in Norwalk, which is dropping five of seven jobs that had been supported through a $330,000 annual grant from the now-defunct Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation.
The grant provided people, materials, and nicotine patches and gum as part of programs to convince youths not to take up smoking and to help adults break the habit.
"It's counterintuitive to this economic stimulus package, in my opinion," said Gloria Ayres of Sandusky, program director for the association's northwest Ohio office. "These ladies have spent a lot of years and energy getting trained to do adult cessation and youth prevention programming to become tobacco treatment specialists, and now that's going to be lost."Ms. Ruby was represented by one of 400 red carnations on the concrete outside the Statehouse yesterday during a rally of about 50 people protesting the state's move. Many in the crowd wore green shirts indicating they were among those losing their jobs.
The state announced plans in April to take all but $40 million from the $270 million trust fund of the foundation, which was created in 2000 with proceeds from Ohio's share of a national lawsuit with major tobacco companies.
The foundation fought back and tried to give away $190 million to a national counterpart with a similar anti-smoking mission. Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and the Republican-controlled General Assembly, in turn, put the renegade foundation out of business.
"The purpose of the tobacco settlement money was not to create jobs," Mr. Strickland said yesterday. "The purpose was to discourage people from starting to smoke and help those who wanted to stop smoking. It was not and should not have been viewed as an employment agency."
The funds are tied up in court as the Washington-based American Legacy Foundation seeks to enforce what it claims is a valid $190 million contract signed by the Ohio foundation before it was killed.
The Department of Health recently sent out notices to grant recipients notifying them that their funding will end as of Monday. A Franklin County judge this week thawed his money freeze a bit, allowing the release of $10 million to the department - $4 million to cover obligations in the current fiscal year ending Monday and $6 million to continue some programs in the next fiscal year. That compares to an annual budget of more than $40 million that the Ohio foundation had been spending.
Shelly Kiser, director of advocacy for the lung association, urged lawmakers to raise taxes on cigars, chewing tobacco, and other tobacco products that are currently taxed at lower levels than cigarettes and to dedicate those funds to anti-smoking efforts. Lawmakers so far have resisted such an effort.
The $1.57 billion jobs package is designed to jump-start Ohio's economy through road and other public works construction, investment in biomedical and bio-food research and product development, alternative energy development, conversion of vacant historic buildings into revenue-producing businesses or housing, cleanup of polluted industrial sites, and college internships and jobs.
Contact Jim Provance at:
jprovance@theblade.com
or 614-221-0496.
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