A group connected with the proposed tobacco tax increase on the Missouri ballot gave local political club Freedom, Inc. a $50,000 contribution Friday, the day Freedom announced a settlement with the Ethics Commission over a long list of finance violations.

The group working for local police control in St. Louis also kicked in $17,500 that day, finance disclosures show, and Back to Basics -- the local committee affiliated with consultant Pat Gray -- gave another $2,500.

The money is expected to go for newspaper inserts, fliers, and sample ballots in the final week of the campaign.

The anti-smoking group, Missourians for Health and Education, had raised about $4.8 million as of last week. A little less than a third of that, about $1.4 million, has come from the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City.

The group, in turn, gave Freedom $50,000.

Gray's company also donated to Freedom in mid-October, enabling it, in part, to pay a $9,500 fine to the Ethics Commission for four years of misfiled campaign finance reports.