Asleep in the Money Line

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) will join Proposition 10’s Chairman Rob Reiner and its executive director, Jane Henderson, today in announcing the release of several hundred million dollars to fund the early childhood development programs called for by the initiative. All that money and Los Angeles County, instead of planning how to use its large share, has spent the last year fighting about who’s in charge. For shame.

Since January, when the state began collecting funds for Proposition 10 programs through a 50-cent-a-pack cigarette tax, some counties have written proposals and even established pilot programs illustrating ways for parents, teachers, social workers and others to help children thrive.

More than three months ago, for instance, Alameda County supervisors advanced their Proposition 10 commission $450,000, which it used to hire staff and identify specific, effective programs.

Then there’s Los Angeles County, which is slated to get $112 million, compared with Alameda’s $21 million. Its program doesn’t even have an executive director, much less the detailed strategic plan that it needs to get state approval to spend its money.

The bureaucratic paralysis is providing a scapegoat for Cigarettes Now!, a campaign funded by cigarette retailers to repeal Proposition 10 through an initiative on the ballot next March.

While Los Angeles County supervisors have appointed their Proposition 10 commission, as the initiative requires, the supervisors have failed to grant the 13-member commission the independence it needs to hire staff--from inside or outside government--and plan programs. The supervisors’ own inaction hasn’t stopped them from blaming the commission. For example, Supervisor Don Knabe recently complained that “if they don’t spend that money soon, they’re asking for trouble.” By “they,” Knabe meant the commissioners, of course. What he didn’t point out is that he himself chairs the commission. Orange County, which will get a $50-million share, only recently finished appointing its nine-member commission, which puts pressure on that panel to work quickly. There has been robust debate among health-care advocates about whether to spend the money on specific programs or for broader goals including deficit reduction, and that issue needs to be settled.

In L.A. County, the day-to-day head of the commission, Vice Chairman Neil Kaufman, should wait no longer for help from the supervisors. He should propose--soon, publicly and in detail--programs that could be funded by the new monies. If that means hiring outside staff and risking the wrath of Civil Service employees, so be it.

There are plenty of proven programs. The Hope Street Program of the California Hospital Medical Center, for instance, provides one-stop community centers offering parent education, prenatal counseling and literacy training for children and families.

Los Angeles County leaders have not done much to ease the fears of the early opponents of Proposition 10, who wondered whether the initiative would live up to its goal of transcending politics-as-usual. Los Angeles County commissioners, with or without a shred of leadership from the Board of Supervisors, should follow Alameda County’s lead and show that the initiative’s vision is attainable.