Daily Bulletin
Lawmakers work for oversight of First 5
By Troy Anderson
Staff Writer
Awash in money from the Proposition 10 tobacco tax engineered by actor-director Rob Reiner, California's early-childhood commissions have spent more than $164 million in the last six years on public relations and advertising, state documents show.
The extent of the spending was found after a review of more than 16,000 pages of public records, and comes on the heels of earlier criticism about the program's administrative spending at the state and county levels.
It was only this past week that Reiner announced the long-awaited launch of the First 5 program to make preschool available to 100,000 4-year-olds in Los Angeles County within a decade -- a result of the 50 cents-a-pack Proposition 10 tobacco tax voters approved in 1998.
Reiner -- who is considering challenging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger next year -- said the media and ad expenditures were necessary to get the word out about the importance of early-childhood education.
"It's the wisest thing we can do," Reiner said. "We started from a place of people really not understanding about early-childhood development. And it was written into the initiative purposefully for that reason to help people understand the importance of early childhood."
But public relations experts and others questioned spending so much money, noting that the advertising and promotion spending puts the preschool program on par with the largest such campaigns by any state agency, including the California State Lottery.
"It seems to me this is an incredible amount of money for PR and advertising. I know government agencies should get the word out to people, but to this extent? It boggles the mind," said William R. Faith, associate professor emeritus at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.
"I can't see where they could spend that much money and not have their programs on everyone's tongue."
Larry McCarthy, president of the California Taxpayers Association, said the ad spending is an unfortunate byproduct of the initiative process.
"Proposition 10 locked in tremendous new public spending programs that will be difficult to ever unwind," McCarthy said. "The ugly side of the initiative process is that it can be manipulated and can create lucrative, taxpayer-financed spending that is virtually unchecked."
"Unlimited Visa card '
Jonathan Wilcox, an expert in state politics, celebrity and media culture, said the "perceived problem is that First 5 is a well-meaning, social-architecture organization with an essentially unlimited Visa card."
"This commission has some very big ideas, and I suppose they think it's only right it has an enormous media budget," said Wilcox, an adjunct professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.
"Spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising could very well move people to ask the fundamental question: What has it done for me lately, and can it possibly improve the lives of substantial numbers of people in the long term?"
Californians authorized the spending in 1998 by voting for the Proposition 10 ballot measure, which requires 6percent of its tobacco-tax revenues to be spent on media ads.
Of the $3.4billion the tax has generated, only $1.3billion has been spent -- mostly on providing universal health care to children in 18 counties.
Since 1999-2000, First 5 California -- which Reiner chairs -- has paid several public relations and marketing firms for media and advertising campaigns, including $103million to Washington, D.C.-based GMMB, $42million to Los Angeles-based Rogers & Associates, $6million to Sacramento-based Runyon Saltzman & Einhorn, and $14million to Los Angeles-based Asher and Partners.
Those payments included expenditures for paid media advertisements, public-relations staff to support the 58 county commissions, and $15million that goes to more than 100 community-based organizations and for public-information services.
In contrast, the state Department of Social Services spent $2 million on the Safely Surrendered Baby campaign during that period.
Among all state agencies during that period, the Department of Health Services had the highest overall spending on public relations and advertising, totaling $240million for a variety of campaigns. The largest, amounting to $146million, was the state's anti-smoking campaign funded by Proposition 99, a 25-cent-a-pack cigarette tax voters approved in 1988.
The state Lottery, which is self-supporting from ticket sales, spent $191million on TV and radio ads and billboards in that period.
More than Lottery
But First 5 spent the most in any 12-month-period, doling out $50million in 2001-02. The most the state Lottery spent in a year was $43million in 2000-01.
"I believe California's anti-smoking campaign spent at its peak $25 (million) to $30million a year," said Lynne Doll, president of Rogers & Associates. "When the Public Utilities Commission was deregulating the electrical market, they spent $30 million to $50million a year educating the public to prevent consumer fraud."
Roy Behr, a partner at GMMB and a longtime adviser to California Democratic politicians, said his firm was hired to produce TV, radio and billboard ads focused on convincing parents and expectant parents to stop smoking and educating them about the importance of preschool and early-childhood brain development.
Behr said those campaigns resulted in 10,000 parents calling a state hot line for help to stop smoking and 150,000 parents requesting early-childhood development kits.
The current ads focusing on making people more aware of the importance of preschool are particularly timely because of a new Harvard University study that found more than half of Los Angeles Unified School District students fail to finish high school -- which is double the state's dropout rate, Behr said.
Also, a Field Poll this past week found that the education and well-being of children are Californians' top concerns.
"Preschool is something that has been scientifically proven to increase a child's chances of graduating from high school," Behr said. "The Perry Preschool study, which began tracking kids 40 years ago, found that even after 40 years there was a substantial improvement in the kids' lives in terms of productivity, education, economic contributions and so on."
Doll said her public relations firm's campaign for First 5 reached more than 19million people with TV coverage and generated more than 160million "media impressions," a term that describes the number of times the message has been seen.
"We have seen a dramatic increase in the public's awareness and understanding of issues related to young children, and how to make the most of their early years," Doll said. "Two-thirds of the population now agrees that making preschool available to all is an important priority for California now."
First 5 bogged down
In 2004, a state audit found that excessive amounts of Proposition 10 funds were spent on administrative and travel expenses. In November, it was reported that six years after Reiner had won approval for the tobacco tax, the universal preschool program had yet to get up and running -- bogged down by poor planning, political infighting and conflicts of interest.
Since then, Reiner has been working with Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, D-Oakland, and Sen. Dean Florez, D-Bakersfield, on legislation to strengthen the oversight and administration of Proposition 10.
Reiner said there have been isolated problems with some county commissions. These include excessive travel expenses in Los Angeles County and a lucrative severance package deal for a Bakersfield commissioner whose salary nearly doubled since 1999.
A Kings County Grand Jury report released this past week found "administrative spending was way out of control," Florez said.
"The legislation makes sure the money can't be misspent," Reiner said. "What it does is give real teeth to the state commission to withhold funds if the local commissions don't live up to their strategic plans or are misusing funds."
The legislation also gives the state commission the authority to eliminate conflicts of interest, limit administration costs, cap salaries and provide more auditing oversight.
"Part of the problem with Prop. 10 is that we never built any oversight into it," Florez said. "We want to take a look at how funds are spent and whether things can be done cheaper."
Knowing that Proposition 10 funds are slowly decreasing as fewer people smoke -- the annual amount of funds generated has dropped from $700million a year initially to less than $600million annually now -- Reiner said it's important that people have confidence that funds are being spent properly and know what they are being spent on.
"This is the first major step in fixing the overall public education system in California," Reiner said. "It's important to understand that this is part of a larger movement of investing in young kids. It's a movement that is tied to revenue streams that someday may not be there.
"So we've got to make sure that everything we do is as good as it can be so the public is buying into what we are trying to do so that down the road they will want this investment to continue." |
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