TOPEKA, Kan. (Legal Newsline) — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has announced the state has received its annual tobacco settlement payment of $59,124,916.31.
The monetary sum is equal to the estimate Schmidt provided last fall to the consensus revenue estimators.
“We continue our efforts to keep the state’s annual payment received each April from the master settlement agreement (MSA) as stable as possible,” Schmidt said. “However, because several variables have converged, predicting the anticipated amount of receipts over the next few years will be particularly difficult.”
April 2018 marks the end of strategic contribution fund payments made to the state under the original MSA, which will result in a sizable decrease in annual money received by Kansas. At this time, the state cannot predict how much the reduction will be, and this type of variable can often undermine the stability of the state’s annual receipts, Schmidt's office said.