Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is setting up a robust governance structure to decide how the city will allocate the nearly quarter of a billion dollars it received in opioid settlements and hundreds of millions more that it will likely reap from further settlements.
Scott said the city will initially appropriate $20 million to the health department and $42 million to 12 organizations focused on substance abuse and overdose prevention like Tuerk House and Helping Up Mission.
However, the windfall of funds will need careful stewardship to ensure it’s invested in the right areas to best help those impacted by the opioid epidemic, Scott said.
“It isn’t enough to win the funds – we need to put them to work,” Scott said Thursday morning. “This executive order will ensure that restitution funds are governed responsibly, transparently, and effectively in order to support our residents and communities most affected by the epidemic — not just during this administration, but for years to come.”
With the executive order, the city states that the funds will be used purely for substance abuse and overdose programs and services. That includes treatment, recovery, harm reduction and social determinants to health associated with the opioid epidemic. The order also sanctions the use of the funds for infrastructure relating to those programs and their evaluation.
The money can go to both governmental and private organizations for those purposes.
The city will create an opioid restitution advisory board to recommend the best way to spend those funds.
Baltimore decided not to sign onto the global settlement which distributed more than $50 billion nationally. Instead, the city decided to sue the drug manufacturers on its own.
“Here in Baltimore, we have been disproportionately impacted – particularly due to the actions of reckless bad actors in big pharma,” Scott said. “We made the decision to see our litigation against these companies through until the very end, foregoing the global settlements that were offered along the way, because we knew how impacted our community has been and how important it was to see adequate financial accountability from these companies.”
So far, the city has won nearly a quarter of a billion dollars from three companies. It will likely get hundreds of millions more from the likes of Purdue Pharma and other drug manufacturers as it continues its litigation.
Some jurisdictions have used their funding from the global settlement for things like paying off debts or other initiatives that are only cursorily related to opioid recovery.
Baltimore city officials said the administration wanted to ensure the funds the city won would be used in the best way possible to prevent overdoses and help those most impacted by the opioid crisis.
The advisory board will be made up of top health officials and drug experts, as well as members of the city council, addiction specialists and members of the community who have experience with opioid issues.
The city is also creating a trust fund to stash the money it wins. A city official said it will be used much like a university endowment where the funds will be invested and the interest will be used for future programs.
However, to ensure the money is used, the executive order mandates that at least 5% of the funds are spent annually on programs and services.
The city is creating two new positions, an executive director of overdose response and an opioid restitution program manager to directly oversee programs and grants.
The city will also provide multiple strategies and community plans on a regular basis for how best to allocate the funding it receives.
Baltimore will continue its litigation with drug manufacturers next month. A trial is set for Sept. 16, unless the city and the companies come to a settlement before then.
