TOPEKA – (April 28, 2015) – Kansas has received its annual tobacco settlement payment totaling $62,442,634.28, Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced today.
The $62.4 million total is consistent with the estimate that the Attorney General provided last fall to the consensus revenue estimators.
“Our ongoing work to enforce the terms of the Master Settlement Agreement has kept the Kansas payment relatively stable,” Schmidt said. “We continue to work with the Legislature to strengthen Kansas law implementing the terms of the settlement and to work with other state agencies to diligently enforce the law’s requirements.”
Schmidt said that a 2012 legal settlement term sheet Kansas entered into with several tobacco companies resolved a long-running dispute that had put future years’ payments in jeopardy. The term sheet was approved by an arbitration panel composed of retired federal judges in 2013. Absent settlement, the dispute had threatened to cause a catastrophic reduction in future years’ payments to Kansas.
As it does each year, the annual payment will reimburse the state for funds previously appropriated by the Legislature to pay the current fiscal year’s cost of programs financed from tobacco settlement proceeds. Because of the timing of the annual tobacco payment in comparison with the state budget cycle, the Legislature each year appropriates funds that will not be received until the following April and then reimburses that amount when the annual payment is received.
Each April, Kansas receives a payment pursuant to the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. The amount of the payment fluctuates based on several variables, including annual sales of certain tobacco products.
