Budget cuts force out Iowa anti-smoking chief

DES MOINES (AP) ? Budget cutbacks have eliminated the job of Iowa?s top anti-smoking official.

The Des Moines Register reports that Division of Tobacco Use Prevention and Control director Bonnie Mapes has taken early retirement after her division?s budget was cut from $7.8 million to $2.8 million in recent deliberations by the Legislature.

Mapes, 60, had led the division since 2004, but budget cuts left the agency too small to merit a full-time director.

Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, the health department?s medical director, has been named interim division director.

Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks said Monday that state leaders have been talking for years about placing the division?s duties into other parts of the health department, adding that her decision to eliminate Mapes? position was no reflection of her job performance.

Miller-Meeks said she needs to fit anti-smoking efforts into a tight budget, and it made more sense to focus limited funding on such things as the Quitline Iowa phone counseling program and local anti-smoking organizations rather than a separate state division.

But Sen. Herman Quirmbach, a Democrat from Ames, a strident anti-smoking voice, complained about the development in a letter released Monday by his staff, calling the move a ?firing? and saying he was ?dismayed? by it.

Mapes? agency is involved in producing edgy anti-smoking ads and providing counseling and medications to Iowa residents who want to give up tobacco. But some Republicans have complained about the ads, and Gov. Terry Branstad has said he does not believe they are effective.

Tim Albrecht, a spokesman for Branstad, said the governor is committed to combating smoking. He said the governor signed off on Miller-Meeks? decision to terminate Mapes? position, adding that Branstad understood the need to cut programs, including the anti-smoking ads.

?Given Iowa?s severe budget constraints, most departments and agencies saw a decrease in funding,? Albrecht said.

Threase Harms, a Des Moines lobbyist for the anti-smoking group Clean Air for Everyone, said Mapes? dismissal raises questions about how serious Branstad is about his frequently stated opposition to smoking.

?If they want Iowa to be the healthiest state in the nation, how are we going to do that without addressing the No. 1 cause of preventable deaths?? Harms said.