The measure approved today would put 80 percent of Idaho’s annual tobacco receipts in the endowment. The rest will go in a separate fund.
Senate passes tobacco savings account amendment
March 1, 2006
The Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho Four-fifths of the money given to Idaho from a 1998 tobacco-industry settlement would go into a permanent fund under a constitutional amendment that passed the Idaho Senate today.
The Millennium Fund comes from Idaho’s share of a pact with the nation’s five largest tobacco companies.
Lawmakers who oversee the fund have been trying for several years to create an endowment with it. They want to protect the money from being used to balance state budgets, as it was in 2002 and 2003.
The measure approved today would put 80 percent of Idaho’s annual tobacco receipts in the endowment. The rest will go in a separate fund.
