HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania received a significantly smaller payment from tobacco companies this year, and that has led to funding cuts for some state programs dependent upon tobacco money.

The state Tobacco Settlement Fund received nearly $66 million less than in 2009.

Activists attribute this to a marked decline in public smoking, while state officials say part of the drop is attributable to the absence of a one-time payment that temporarily boosted the total payment in 2009.

The result of the mix of factors at work is that a half-dozen state programs designated to receive tobacco money have less funding under the new state budget just when finances are especially tight because of the recession.

For example, the adultÂ­Basic program for low-income adults who lack health insurance receives $10.8 million in tobacco money this year, down two-thirds from $36.6 million in 2009-10, according to the House Appropriations Committee and governor's budget office. The lion's share of funding for adultBasic comes from the four Blue Cross insurers.

Programs aimed at helping people to stop using tobacco and avoid use in the first place receive $14.7 million, down nearly $3 million.

Pennsylvania uses its annual tobacco payment to support a variety of health-related programs as well as the programs to help individuals quit smoking.

The payment stems from an agreement between the tobacco industry and state attorneys general in 1998. The agreement settled claims against the tobacco industry to recover Medicaid costs associated with treating smoking-related illnesses in exchange for the states dropping lawsuits.

The size of the payment is governed by a formula partly based on smoking rates in each state.

National smoking rates have dropped 8 percent, a reaction some think to a 62-cent-per-pack federal tax hike on cigarettes approved by Congress in 2009.

A hike in the federal cigarette tax exerts more of a drag on cigarette sales than cigarette tax hikes at the state level, said Bill Godshall, executive director of Smokefree Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania lawmakers left a state cigarette tax hike off the table when the new budget was hammered out.

Concerning the $66 million drop, about $31 million or almost half that amount reflects the absence of a one-time payment in 2009 from tobacco companies in connection with a legal dispute over the 2003 payment, said Susan Hooper, spokeswoman for the governor's budget office.

That leaves $34.5 million in question.

"It would be speculative to say how much of the drop is attributable to the federal cigarette tax," Ms. Hooper said.

The 2010 payment is closer to the norm, which has been around $350 million since the program started, said Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, spokesman for Attorney General Tom Corbett, who oversees the settlement.

In any event, no one disputes that fewer and fewer Americans are smoking and if smoking rates go way down, the tobacco settlement fund could someday disappear.

Cigarette sales in the United States have dropped by more than 21 percent since the 1998 settlement, according to the National Association of Attorneys General.

"It's one of the few government programs set up to put itself out of business if the problem goes away," Mr. Godshall said.

Contact the writer: rswift@timesshamrock.comFewer funds

-âAdult-Basic funding is down 66% in tobacco money this year.

-âStop-smoking program funds are down nearly $3 million.