Steve Roman

The public awareness campaign was active last summer, though in a much more viral manner than political advocacies usually take. The black and white signs dotted the street corners of various Valley intersections, asking a question rather than making a proclamation: “Are Arizona children getting PUNK’D?”
The signs were the precursor to the First Things First ballot initiative, an effort to provide funding for programs that help childhood development which voters will decide on this fall. It will be funded by a tobacco tax.
Steve Roman, part of the brain trust behind the viral marketing last year, has worked with Nadine Mathis Basha and her husband, grocery store magnate Eddie Basha, to develop the initiative. Mr. Roman is a political consultant and partner at Hamilton, Gullett, Davis & Roman, a Phoenix public affairs firm.
He spoke with Arizona Capitol Times by telephone July 19 about the initiative and why Arizona children are starting school unprepared to succeed.
What problems does this initiative hope to solve?
All indicators in our state for many years have shown that, if you take a look at the standard indicators for early childhood and children’s development in general, that we have been at the bottom of the pack for a number of years. We may be 43, we may be 45, we may be 42, but we’re always in the bottom of the pack.
Part of the reason for that, we believe, is not enough focus has been placed on early childhood development and healthcare. Our belief is if you make that kind of investment in that particular area, you’ll have tremendous returns. As a matter of fact, we have data from the Federal Reserve that shows the significant returns. That’s more or less the genesis of how this whole thing started.
When you say early childhood development and healthcare, what programs specifically are you talking about?
Let’s start with the most important thing, as far as the ‘why’: there is now scientific data — you can see scientifically through PET scans and a variety of other tools — that a child’s brain is 90 percent developed by age three. By the time they’re age five, meaning by the time they’re starting kindergarten, virtually 100 percent of their brain is pretty wired. So, those first five years, which causes the formation of how the brain is wired and put together, you could argue pretty legitimately, are the most important years for an individual. If it’s wired properly, you will more than likely end up getting better results than if it’s not wired properly.
What we’re talking about with early childhood development is all of the things that are in place that can impact the development or the wiring of a child’s brain in that timeframe.
That’s a variety of different things: it’s how the child relates to their parents, how the parents are doing that. Healthcare is extremely important. For example, one of the biggest issues that impoverished kids have is quality dental care. If you are having problems with your teeth when you’re little, it dramatically impacts your overall development as an individual. They can show that scientifically. When we say childhood development, healthcare is just a part of that.
Is this initiative aimed primarily at children from impoverished families?
It is not only for that, but it is based on need. One of the things the regional entities formed by this [to manage programs] look at for distribution of funds is a poverty threshold.
A regional partnership determines what is necessary in its own particular region. It will do an audit of the needs in the region and determine, ‘We’re lacking in this. We’re great in this, but we don’t have this.’ It could be, ‘We have great daycare, but we don’t have the ability to get people to daycare.’ Another area could be the daycare itself: the quality or the training of the people.
In terms of the funding mechanisms, part of that is based on the number of children in a region that are at the poverty level. There’s a weighted amount of funding for disadvantaged children.
How many different regions are we talking about in the state and how will the regional partnerships be formed?
It is undefined [in the initiative] in terms of the number of regions that will be developed. What this does is creates a statewide governing board. That board, after it is formed, will then determine the appropriate number of regions — and that number can change from time to time. We don’t want this to be in stone, never to change. It could be that there needs to be three or four in Maricopa County based on population. It could be that Native Americans want a region on their tribal lands. All of that has to be looked at. It will be up to the governing board to make that decision.
What we do know is that there will be a number of regions out there and each one will have its own administration to determine what’s best in that area. When I say administration, people tend to think, ‘Aha! You’re spending money on administration, not on programs.’ According to the initiative, no more than 10 percent of any of the dollars that are spent on this can be spent on administration, so 90 percent of all dollars will be going to services.
If this passes in November, how long will it take before the money starts to reach the programs and help kids?
I don’t know the exact time frame — what I mean by that is it’s impossible to know how long the process of creating regional partnerships and auditing needs is going to take, but I would think you’re talking about the first year of this putting all that structure in place. That also allows for that tax to be collected during that time frame. We’re not going to spend more than we collect. We’re predicting that we’re going to collect about $150 million annually, but if we collect $149 million, we’re only going to spend that.
The tax is a tobacco tax: 80 cents per pack of cigarettes and a commensurate amount on other forms of tobacco. Why tax tobacco?
The history of the tobacco tax is such that the citizens of this state have looked at it as a method of funding things they believe to be important issues or items that need to be solved or funded. And example of that is the very first, I believe, tobacco tax, which was for Corrections. A portion of tobacco sales right now goes to help pay for Corrections.
Later on, it has gone on to fund other things like healthcare, but it’s always been issues where the public has said, ‘We think it’s important and we think a tobacco tax will generate the dollars to pay for that.’ That’s how it has been used in the past and it’s how we’re using it now.
Isn’t that a diminishing source of revenue, as people quit smoking?
We’ve run those numbers in detail and if you take a look at the amount of tobacco usage today, and then you factor in an increase [in price], you will see a slight decline in usage percentage. But you also have to factor in that we are a growing state and there are more users. There are more people here that are going to be smoking. Even though the percentage may drop, the sheer number of users as the state grows, we believe, will generate about $150 million a year in the first 10 years of this plan.
Now, if — and I say ‘if’ and have no problem with this ‘if’ — if the usage drops to where nobody smokes and there’s no tax, that’s fine with us. We’ll be more than happy, at that point, to go out and try to find another source of revenue at that time. But we’re very confident this will generate that amount of money for 10 years and when people have been able to see what the results were, it will be much easier down the road to find another source of income for the program.
How will this impact the education of the children that benefit from this initiative?
The key of all of these things is to make sure Arizona’s children, when they start into the education system, that they’re all starting from the same starting line, that some are not starting and already behind. The chances will be much greater for these kids — all kids — to be successful in the education system.
Is there any precedent for this initiative?
This program is modeled after a program in North Carolina that was started about 15 years ago. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s pretty similar. In 15 years, they’ve had success. They’re scores have gone up dramatically. They can pretty well point to the fact that this program has been a direct success on the kids that have had quality early childhood development and now have a better quality education because they’re more prepared to begin that education process. Their test scores are showing that.
Thanks for giving me a few minutes.
Absolutely.