At the November meeting of the Opioid Abatement Authority, Executive Director Tony McDowell announced two professional services contracts and previewed upcoming public products and events.

McDowell said the OAA contracted Consociate Media to build out communications channels and produce program highlights, including videos and storyboards featuring local program participants and state legislators. "They are storytellers," McDowell said, and staff expects "2 or 3 of those stories to be out and up and running by February."

The OAA also retained accounting and consulting firm RSM to help the authority respond to tentative management recommendations from the auditor of public accounts, develop a comprehensive policies and procedures manual, create an external grantee audit manual, and perform risk analysis and pressure testing to prepare the OAA for future audits.

McDowell updated the board on the foundation tied to the OAA: the foundation is legally established, Tim Spencer was elected president, and the foundation will receive seed funding from the OAA to launch the first Virginia-specific "best practices and substance use abatement" conference in June 2026 at the Hotel Roanoke.

On data, McDowell presented the SUDA (Substance Use Disorder Abatement) platform demonstration shown to the board in October and confirmed the public landing page will be released December 3. He said the platform will include multi-year substance-use risk assessments, drug-supply and usage trends from the state lab, service utilization data, and analytics prepared in cooperation with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Department of Health.

McDowell described the suite of communications and data products as essential for telling the story of more than 200 OAA-funded projects across the Commonwealth and said staff will share release information with board members once live.