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House allocates $1.34M for tobacco programs
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Posted on Nov 07 2008
The House of Representatives has voted unanimously to appropriate $1.34 million of tobacco control funds for fiscal year 2009.
The bill, now awaiting action in the Senate, appropriates funds to programs designed to prevent tobacco use and alcohol abuse in the Commonwealth.
Specifically, the bill provides $900,000 to the Department of Public Health; for the Diabetes Prevention and Control Program ($535,000); the Community Guidance Center’s Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services ($250,000); mammogram film reading and interpretation ($39,000); the purchase of a network-attached storage for the Cancer Registry ($1,000); the Cancer Coalition ($50,000); and the Comprehensive Cancer Control Program ($25,000).
The bill also appropriates $325,000 to the Public School System for the development of a comprehensive school health education program, for Project Familia, and for the Teen Talk program.
In addition, $39,000 was set aside for the youth centers on Saipan, and $75,000 each to Rota and Tinian’s Tobacco and Substance Abuse prevention programs at their respective health centers.
The new legislation updates another House-passed bill, which proposed to fund PSS’ comprehensive coordinated school health education program out of the Tobacco Control Fund, and which now sits in the Senate committee for review. Most of the funding that had been originally proposed for the PSS program in HB 16-120 was preserved in HB 16-129.
