(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . How is New Orleans spending millions in opioid funds? [1] ['Katie Jane Fernelius', 'More Katie Jane Fernelius', 'Verite News', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width'] Date: 2024-05-30 This month marks one year since millions of dollars from a landmark legal settlement with pharmaceutical companies over their role in the opioid crisis began flowing to local governments in Louisiana. New Orleans’ share of the proceeds has amounted to $3.36 million so far, with 80% — $2.68 million — going to the New Orleans Health Department. Under state rules, the remaining 20% — $671,000 — has gone to the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office. Those payments, beginning in May 2023, represent the first three years of opioid settlement funds. Though terms of the settlement were reached in 2021, it took nearly two years for the state to set up a payment system and ink agreements with local governments. In 2021, drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and three prescription wholesalers agreed to pay approximately $26 billion in order to settle scores of lawsuits filed against them by state and local governments accusing them of ignoring or downplaying the addictive properties of opioids. That settlement, which will be paid out over 18 years, required participating states to use the majority of the funds towards abatement of the opioid crisis. Louisiana’s share from that settlement is an estimated $354.2 million. The state will also see an estimated $217.4 million from seven other settlements, together making up approximately $571.6 million, with some additional funds from other pending settlements expected. The New Orleans Health Department estimates that it will likely receive at least $18 million from the assorted opioid settlement funds over the course of the settlement. As the city prepares to receive its next tranche of payments in the next month, the New Orleans Health Department has hired a staff member to help maximize the use of funds and ramped up its existing opioid abatement programs, especially in terms of purchasing resources like Narcan and xylazine that can reduce the harm and risk associated with opioid use. A representative for the Sheriff’s Office did confirm that the office had received its approximately $671,000 share of opioid settlement funds, but did not respond to questions asking how the sheriff planned to spend this money and whether she planned to provide a specific report of those expenditures. When asked which programs and services the office offered for opioid abatement, the representative replied that the Sheriff’s Office had “multiple ongoing programs and initiatives built around supporting re-entry and family reunification.” Under a 2021 agreement between the state and local governments, Louisiana isn’t requiring sheriffs to report their annual settlement spending to the task force, though other local governments receiving the money must send a yearly report, according to Victor Franckiewicz, counsel for the Opioid Abatement Administration Corporation, which distributes the settlement money to local governments in the state. “It’s not like the sheriffs can hide how they’re spending it,” Franckiewicz said. “They just don’t have an affirmative reporting obligation to report it upward.” Unusual arrangement for state Louisiana’s settlement spending plan is unusual in two ways, according to Verite’s review of the Opioid Settlement Tracker, which documents how states are distributing their opioid settlement funds. First, Louisiana, unlike other participating states, has directed virtually all of its opioid settlement money to local governments, with the state itself serving only as a pass-through. And second, it is the only state to carve out a significant proportion of the funds directly to sheriffs. A 2021 memorandum of understanding signed by then-Attorney General Jeff Landry between the state and its local governments established that all funds would be received and spent by local governments, who in turn would need to spend those funds on an expansive list of approved “opioid abatement strategies.” The agreement stipulated that local parish governments would receive 80% of total settlement funds, with sheriffs in each parish splitting the remaining 20%. The agreement also created a state task force, which serves as a committee to advise and review the spending of the opioid settlement money. The majority of states split money between state and local governments according to the tracker. For example, Indiana splits the settlement money 50-50 between state and local governments, while Georgia’s split is 75-25. But Louisiana chose to distribute all of its funding at the local level, the only state to do so. According to a presentation on the Louisiana Opioid Abatement Task Force website, there was an “early-on decision” that “100% of the funds [would] go to the local level.” No other state has earmarked as much of its funding percentage as Louisiana has for law enforcement. Most states do allow for local or state agencies to eventually direct some of the funding to law enforcement but don’t specifically earmark funds for police departments or sheriffs. The state that comes closest to resembling Louisiana’s unique arrangement is Georgia, where a percentage of local funds are put aside for sheriffs in certain counties. But that only applies to some counties and amounts to 9.45% of a given local government’s share of funds. Even when law enforcement agencies don’t directly receive the cash, they can still help decide how to spend the opioid settlement funds. Many states, including Texas, Virginia and Tennessee, have law enforcement representatives on state task forces that direct how settlement funds are spent. In Louisiana, the state Sheriff’s Association appoints one of five members to the state Opioid Abatement Task Force. The other four seats include appointees chosen by the Louisiana Municipal Association, the Louisiana Police Jury Association, the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Health, as well as one licensed substance abuse and mental health provider chosen by the governor’s office. Each member serves a term of three years. (Verite reached out to every member of the task force, but all either declined to comment or did not reply by publication time.) Sheriffs in Louisiana also don’t have to tell the task force how they’re spending the money, according to Franckiewicz, the Louisiana Opioid Abatement Task Force attorney. The Louisiana agreement requires only parish governments, not sheriffs, to provide an annual report to the task force detailing how much money was received, allocated and spent. The agreement does require local governments receiving the money to maintain records of their spending for at least five years. And state transparency laws require Sheriffs’ offices to publish and share their budgets with the public. While sheriffs may still be required to share their annual budgets and audits, without a clear reporting requirement, some worry it could be difficult to directly correlate settlement dollars to expenditures. Advocates for transparent reporting of spending have argued that such reporting could help prevent misuse of opioid settlement funds. It is not clear why the agreement, signed by Landry during his tenure as Attorney General, does not require reporting from sheriffs, but Franckiewicz says it could be because sheriffs already have a clear role in opioid abatement. Governor Landry’s office did not respond to Verite’s request for comment in time for publication. “I think the assumption was that the sheriffs have front-line responsibilities, and they already have to operate jails where they have to have treatment programs and so on,” Franckiewicz said. Though the task force should still receive spending reports from 64 local governments, there’s little it can do with those reports beyond sharing them with the public and with the state, Franckiewicz said, as it has no enforcement power: “Enforcement happens at the local level and, ultimately, through the Louisiana Legislative Auditor.” How New Orleans is spending the money In New Orleans, the city Health Department has not yet submitted its spending report, which is due in August 2024, but department spokesperson Isis Casanova shared some of the department’s initiatives. The Johnson & Johnson settlement requires the majority of the money to be dedicated towards opioid abatement. This includes an expansive list of approved uses spanning support for treatment and recovery practices, to programs focused on diversion in the criminal legal system, to harm reduction practices, like naloxone distribution. State and local governments are also allowed to spend the money on public education, training, and even research. The goal was to ensure this money was spent in a way to directly address the causes and effects of the opioid crisis instead of as a stopgap for state budgets as some of the tobacco settlement money had been spent in recent decades. The Health Department already has a number of initiatives focused on addressing the opioid crisis. For now, the settlement funds are mostly being used to continue to support its existing programming and to figure out what other interventions the agency can introduce to help those struggling with opioid addiction. According to Casanova, the department received its first tranche of funds in May 2023. She said that, so far, the department has spent funds on both Narcan, a drug used to reverse an opioid overdose, and xylazine test strips. The Health Department has also used some of the money to establish a partnership with Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. The school will help the department develop a strategic plan for using its settlement funds. The department will pay Tulane researchers to do a local needs assessment related to drug use prevention, treatment, recovery and harm reduction services to inform future spending of the funds. The department has also hired a staffer to oversee the spending of settlement funds. The settlement money will allow the department to hire at least two more people to work on opioid abatement. “We will also be using funds to hire an Outreach and Education Coordinator who will conduct bystander response trainings (including overdose response) and an Overdose Fatality Review Panel Coordinator,” Casanova added. The agency also wants to partner with the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office to implement an opioid fatality review panel in order to collect information about those who die from opioid overdoses and better understand gaps in local health care, law enforcement, and criminal justice systems. (The District Attorney’s office did not respond to Verite’s request for comment in time for publication.) “The Settlement Funds has its own accounting string, so we can track exactly what is spent from this pot of money,” Casanova said. “We also plan on tracking the use of funds internally, so we can share that with community members.” Related Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. 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