The county's opioid-settlement review committee confirmed plans to publish its grant application online immediately, hold a recorded public webinar to walk applicants through the form and produce a public FAQ, the committee said during its meeting.

The application deadline is Nov. 15, and the committee expects to deliver funding recommendations to the county commissioners by mid-December. Committee members discussed reviewer assignments, conflict-of-interest procedures, reporting expectations for awardees and coordination with the city of Bangor and neighboring counties to avoid duplicative funding.

The committee said the Moss Center converted the application into a fillable form for posting on the county website and that an administrative assistant will post the link and accompanying materials, including the state's exhibit describing allowable uses of opioid settlement funds. Committee members agreed a webinar will be held to review the application, answer questions and have the recording and an FAQ posted so applicants who could not attend receive the same information.

Mackenzie David, staff member, said the state-required reporting is minimal and typically includes the project name, a short description and the amount spent. "What is legally required is just the project name, description, and amount spent," David said. David also said the committee will share an evaluation rubric and templates to help smaller organizations that lack grant-writing capacity.

Committee members discussed reporting frequency and burden. The committee plans to ask for a six-month status report and a year-end or end-of-project report for most awards; quarterly reporting will be avoided for the smallest awards. David said the county is developing a substance-use vulnerability index, updated yearly, to give broader context for whether funded projects are linked to changes in indicators such as overdoses, housing burden and certified recovery homes.

Members raised technical and fairness issues for the submission platform. David noted a technical limit: Google Forms enforces a roughly 37,000-character maximum for a response field, which affects how much text the application can accept in a single entry. The group also discussed back-end settings such as limiting one submission per email and checking server timestamps to avoid accidental cutoff problems on the deadline.

On reviewer logistics, the committee agreed to wait until the application period closes before assigning reviewers and that committee members should declare conflicts of interest in advance. The committee discussed using a single scoring form (one Google Form) that reviewers would use to identify which application they are scoring so scores remain consistent and comparable. Best practices mentioned included three reviewers per application when possible and random assignment to balance conflicts.

Committee members said they will provide training and a scoring rubric with explicit descriptions for score values so reviewers understand what a 1–5 rating means on each criterion. The group discussed weighting score categories and noted concern that over-emphasizing cost-per-person could disadvantage some program types such as recovery housing.

Coordination with the city of Bangor and neighboring counties was raised to reduce duplication and to allow shared funding strategies when applicants apply in multiple jurisdictions. The committee emphasized that its role is to recommend awards to the county commissioners; the commissioners will make the final funding decisions.

Next steps assigned during the meeting included: posting the application and supporting documents online; scheduling and recording the applicant webinar; generating an FAQ that captures any webinar questions; sharing the scoring rubric and evaluation templates with committee members; and drafting a press release to notify local media and partner organizations. Committee members said they will continue work on committee policies and procedures once a fuller quorum is present.

The committee did not take any formal votes during the meeting; the decisions recorded were operational directions and assignments for staff and committee members.