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Board opts to let supervisors direct opioid settlement grants rather than an RFP process
Summary
After staff recommended an RFP-based approach dividing $1.5 million evenly across five supervisor districts, the Board of Supervisors voted to allow each district supervisor to direct agreements for their share (option 2) with county oversight and funding agreements.
The Board of Supervisors on April 21 chose a supervisor-directed funding approach for Mohave County’s share of national opioid settlement funds rather than staff’s recommended RFP process.
Director Ryan Morien (Public Health) and procurement staff presented two options after the board earlier directed equal allocation among the five supervisor districts. Staff recommended awarding $300,000 per district (total $1.5 million per grant cycle) divided into three discrete award sizes (large $150,000; medium $100,000; small $50,000) and distributing awards via a scored RFP process to ensure transparent, uniform evaluation and recipient capacity to meet required settlement reporting. Officials noted accounting constraints: settlement proceeds arrive from multiple settlement participants and county accounting must track awards separately by participant fund, so awards may need to be paid from different settlement‑participant accounts.
Procurement said the RFP approach creates a single public process, evaluation committee scoring and consistent pre-award vetting of reporting requirements. Option 2 would instruct supervisors to identify and present recipients from their districts and then have the county attorney draft funding agreements for board approval (a process similar to prior ARPA awards).
Public comment raised concerns about ARPA distribution practices; one commenter urged tighter controls and required proof-of-performance before payments. Several supervisors supported Option 2 for local control, site visits and the ability to evaluate performance in person; others expressed concern about accounting complexity when providers operate across district boundaries. County staff said they would work with grantees to track spending by district and would avoid commingling settlement-participant funds.
Supervisor Gould moved to adopt Option 2 (supervisor-directed funding agreements); the motion was seconded and adopted by the board. Procurement and public-health staff will coordinate with the county attorney on template funding agreements, reporting expectations and district-level tracking for the awards.
Ending: The board authorized supervisor-directed grants for each district and asked staff to draft funding agreements and reporting protocols that meet settlement accounting rules and board expectations.
