Kansas has received its annual tobacco settlement payment totaling $53.3 million. According to Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the total is consistent with the estimate that the attorney general provided last fall to the consensus revenue estimators. 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. Since the first payment was made in 1999, Kansas has received more than $1.24 billion from the participating tobacco manufacturers. The settlement payments are intended to offset the costs of tobacco-related illness and disease that are borne by Kansas taxpayers through government-paid medical benefits.
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