Casper task force recommends one‑year opioid grants totaling just over $1 million; council to review at December work session
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Summary
A task force convened under a city–county memorandum recommended one‑year awards to four entities totaling just over $1,000,000 from opioid settlement funds; the city’s share is about half of the awards and councilors asked for more discussion about evaluation and proposals that included dedicated police staffing.
City Attorney Eric told the council that Casper has taken part in two statewide settlement agreements and that the city has collected "just shy of $1,500,000," with the city and county together holding about $3,000,000 for local opioid response, Eric said.
The opioid task force — formed under a memorandum of understanding between the city and the county — solicited seven proposals, interviewed several applicants and recommended funding four entities for one year only, with total awards just over $1,000,000. Eric said the task force favored one‑year, block grants so the city and county could evaluate results before committing multi‑year funding. "The decision of the task force was to award funding for 1 year only, and to fund 4 different entities, in the sum total of just over $1,000,000," Eric said.
Reporting and split funding: Eric said funding agreements would include reporting requirements so recipients return to council with information on how dollars were used and what impact they achieved; he emphasized balancing reporting needs against making the requirements unduly burdensome. He said roughly half of the recommended funding would come from the city’s distribution and half from the county.
Council concerns and next steps: councilors pressed the task force about evaluation and about several proposals that included dedicating a police officer to a crisis‑response role. Task force members and councilors said staffing limitations in the police department made that approach infeasible now. Council agreed to place the recommendations on a future work session (scheduled for Dec. 9) for more detailed discussion and to return with draft funding agreements for formal approval at a later meeting.
Why it matters: the awards would direct settlement money to local services addressing the opioid crisis; the task force emphasized the need to preserve funds so the city and county can calibrate future spending depending on grant performance and additional settlements.
No formal approvals were finalized during the discussion; councilors asked for the RFPs and additional detail in a future packet and planned a work session to review recommended agreements and reporting expectations.
