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State opioid‑settlement board approves roughly $14.7 million for treatment and prevention programs
Summary
The Kansas Fight Addiction Grant Review Board approved approximately $14.7 million in grants for treatment, prevention and first-responder supports; the grants include funding for residential beds, naloxone distribution and recovery supports, the board’s deputy told the BSRB.
Jason Hess, who serves as the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board’s designee to the Kansas Fight Addiction Grant Review Board, told the BSRB that the review board has completed its second round of awards and approved about $14.7 million for treatment and prevention activities to begin in February.
Hess, introduced at the BSRB meeting as the board’s deputy to the grant review board, said the first wave of grants (approved in 2023) funded roughly $6 million in treatment activities and just over $4 million for prevention, distributed across dozens of organizations. "Our previous round of grants happened and were approved in 2023, and that round that we did, our first grant award went out to roughly 35 different organizations," he said. Hess said the awards funded new residential beds, naloxone distribution (about 4,600 naloxone kits in the first round), recovery houses and other community supports, and he called the grants a mix of treatment, medication-assisted treatment, case management, transportation and recovery-center funding.
On the most recent round, Hess said the review board approved approximately $14.7 million in one‑year grants for treatment and prevention; the treatment contracts will begin Feb. 1. He described the review board’s work to target funds statewide and to commission a needs assessment by the University of Kansas (KU) Center for Public Partnerships & Research to guide future strategic, multi‑year investments. "We're hoping the needs assessment will be completed within the first 3 months of this calendar year," Hess said, adding that Kansas may ultimately receive hundreds of millions from national settlement proceeds over the coming decade.
Hess said the review board is trying to balance one‑time grants with strategies that could support longer-term programming and address access in rural areas, including telemedicine and mobile units. He noted that every Kansas county had received some funding in the earlier rounds.
Why this matters: the grants aim to expand treatment capacity, naloxone distribution and prevention work across Kansas; the review board has said the state may receive substantially more settlement funds in future years and is developing a statewide needs assessment to guide spending.
Sources: presentation to the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board by Jason Hess, deputy to the Kansas Fight Addiction Grant Review Board.
