It’s obscene. Of the $61.5 billion paid by Big Tobacco in a 1998 class-action lawsuit, only one-third has gone to health care and only 4 percent to anti-smoking efforts.

An Associated Press analysis finds money going to such things as a museum in Alaska, a Niagara, N.Y., golf course and a dog catcher in Lincoln, Neb.

It’s a black eye for states and communities that accepted the money on the pretense that they would address smoking’s costs or would curb those costs with anti-smoking efforts.

Amid this outrage, it feels good to report that McLennan County serves as a model that others should have emulated.

In 1999 it created a trust fund for the county’s share of state disbursements (which thus far amount to $4.1 million). It committed itself to increased annual increments of roughly $200,000 to $250,000 a year to the Family Health Center.

Under this approach, the fund grows as an endowment and the center gets the interest accrued.

Family Health Center chief financial officer Allan Patterson has praised the arrangement as one of the best applications of tobacco funds in the country. He’s right.

Unlike plunging the money into one-time purchases or operating costs, using it to increase funding to the Family Health Center has a considerable payback in preventive care and wellness in McLennan County.

This smart use of the tobacco dollars helped address the uneven funding situation for the former Family Practice Center, for which the city of Waco was carrying more of its share of the load. It also supplemented the county’s onerous efforts to help working poor people with their health care. Indigent care is a county obligation, one of the costliest.

Steady support from the city and county, plus designation as a federally qualified health center, has enabled Family Health to expand operations in amazing ways, including dental clinics and school-based health clinics.

County commissioners draw their share of criticism, often rightfully. But when they do something visionary, it’s worth noting.

What they did nine years ago with tobacco dollars was exactly that.