Texas

Summary: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that Texas spend $266.3 million a year to have an effective, comprehensive tobacco prevention program. Texas currently receives $13.3 million a year for tobacco prevention and cessation, which includes both state and federal funds. This is 5.0% of the CDC's recommendation and ranks Texas 46th among the states in the funding of tobacco prevention programs. Texas's spending on tobacco prevention amounts to 0.7% of the estimated $1.86 billion in tobacco-generated revenue the state collects each year from settlement payments and tobacco taxes.

Recent Developments: The initial tobacco settlement funds received by Texas are governed by a 1999 law which placed all the tobacco settlement payments into several permanent endowments earmarked for the following purposes: higher education, children and public health, emergency medical services and trauma care, a higher education nursing and allied health fund, minority health research and education, rural health facility capital improvement, community hospital capital improvement, and individual endowments for 13 medical schools. As Texas receives new funds as part of their settlement with the tobacco industry, they are appropriated by the legislature on a biennial basis.

Texas is spending minimal amounts on tobacco prevention despite the fact that the state is receiving more tobacco-generated revenue than ever before as a result of a $1.00 cigarette tax increase in 2007, bringing Texas's tax to $1.41 a pack.

The biannual state budget for FY2010 and FY2011 appropriated $22.7 million, or $11.4 million per year to tobacco prevention. Combined with funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, total spending on tobacco prevention and cessation for FY2010 will be $13.3 million, about equal to what was spent in FY2009.