Washington County committee reviews options for remaining opioid settlement funds

Washington County Health & Human Services staff reviewed an internal white paper on local uses of opioid settlement funds and told the committee the county has received more than $3 million and expended about $1.1 million to date, leaving roughly $1.9 million available for future allocation.

Director Julie Newman said the county used settlement dollars to open a sobering/peer‑recovery facility (referred to as the “solar living facility” in the report), to fund an assistant county attorney to serve the criminal justice coordinating council and to upgrade the division’s electronic behavioral health record. Staff distributed a spending report that projects additional settlement payments to the county through 2038 and shows the total county allocation as a moving target because settlements and prepayments can change year to year.

Newman said staff will prepare proposals for how to spend the remaining funds and return them to the committee for approval; the committee must authorize allocations before the county board considers them. She identified internal planning conversations underway and said the department received a notice from Vital Strategies offering a grant that would match opioid settlement dollars up to $100,000 for narrowly defined projects.

Committee members asked whether the settlement funds require outcome‑based reporting; staff replied that, because the county is a signatory to the lawsuits, the funds are not administered as a traditional grant that requires measurable impact metrics, but the county must report quarterly on amounts spent and categories of expenditure. Newman said reporting categories are broad and that staff prefer to select uses with a clear connection to mitigation of the opioid crisis (for example, behavioral health services and medication‑assisted treatment) rather than administrative or unrelated costs.

Members also discussed the long‑term sustainability of programs started with settlement dollars. Newman said some programs are funded through a mix of Medicaid, state and county sources and that some federal and state grant funding (for example, state opioid response dollars) has been reduced in recent years; she suggested continuing core programs where state or general revenue funding makes continuation likely, while using settlement funds for start‑up or capital investments that can be supplemented by other sources.

Staff will bring concrete proposals to the committee after internal vetting, including feasibility, expected costs and whether programs can be sustained beyond the settlement period.