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Is Golden LEAF Necessary?

Brian Balfour 

Executive Summary

Why does Golden LEAF exist? This question is not poised in a legal context. Rather it is meant to discern whether the organization offers any unique benefits to the State of North Carolina.

Indeed, an examination of Golden LEAF’s grant making priorities and history suggests that the organization is not needed to effectively disburse its $732 million in assets (as of June 30, 2008) along with the $70 million in annual revenue it receives as part of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) resulting from a lawsuit filed against the major tobacco manufacturers.

In short, the tobacco settlement money could still be spent on the exact same programs as are currently funded by Golden LEAF, even if Golden LEAF didn’t exist.

It makes little sense for millions of the state’s dollars to be annually spent on operational costs for an organization headed by political cronies with no accountability to citizens. For the two fiscal years 2007 and 2008 alone, Golden LEAF spent a combined $9.3 million on administrative costs and capital outlays. That’s a sizeable amount for an organization that mostly duplicates efforts already addressed by numerous other means.

The chart below details three of Golden LEAF’s grant making “impact areas,” along with a list of other government funding efforts dedicated to those very same areas. And for more examples of Golden LEAF's redundancy, click here for a spreadsheet showing how a majority of Golden LEAF's 2008 grants were also funded by other entities.

The case for allowing Golden LEAF to continue to manage and disburse millions of the state’s dollars is not compelling. Dissolving Golden LEAF will enhance transparency, provide greater accountability over the state’s master settlement agreement funds and streamline government operations while eliminating an unnecessary and redundant organization. Doing so would demonstrate to North Carolina citizens that our state legislators are committed to becoming more responsible stewards of the state’s – and taxpayers – money.

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