The final day of 1999 brought a payment of 18-point-seven million dollars to the state of Iowa from the settlement with the large tobacco companies. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller says the payment was several weeks early and now, total tobacco payments to the state top 40-million dollars. Miller calls the tobacco settlement a major advance for Iowa as we begin a new millennium.Miller says the most important chapter of the tobacco story begins later this month when the legislature decides how to spend the tobacco money.He says the tobacco settlement is an important mark in Iowa’s legal history for the past decade and century.Iowa is expected to get a total of one-point-nine billion dollars from the tobacco settlement by the year 2005.