Finance Committees in both the House and the Senate have passed out budget bills for FY2011 and there is good news - and bad news - in the proposals for tobacco control.
The House version of the budget restored funding to the tobacco prevention line item to the same level as FY2010 - $5,667,111 - eliminating the 11.5% cuts proposed by Governor Manchin.
However, the Senate kept the cuts advocated by Governor Manchin in his budget proposal and the Senate’s bill would only fund tobacco prevention efforts at $5,010,793.
Over the next few days the two chambers will go about the procedural requirements of appointing budget conferees who will work on hammering out differences between the two versions of the budget bill. Conferees will meet into next week during the extended budget session and, once their work is complete, the full legislature must pass the compromise budget bill to send it to the Governor.
Please contact your House and Senate members requesting that they support the funding of tobacco prevention efforts at NO LESS THAN the FY2010 level .
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