Commissioners agree to join national opioid 'remnant' settlement after resident demands audit of funds

The Allegany County Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to participate in a national 'remnant defendant' opioid settlement and authorized staff to return a participation form by May 8.

Resident Sean Major of Frostburg urged the commission for greater transparency and an independent audit of opioid restitution funds, saying state-level settlement receipts nationwide totalled "over $245,000,000" and that only a small portion of restricted assets have been deployed. "Before this budget is finalized, the community demands an audit," Major said, adding that peer-led recovery services are a cost-effective alternative to incarceration.

Administrator Jason Bennett told the board a task force oversees the county's opioid restitution funds. "We got a lump sum of roughly $750,000 when it was instituted. We get somewhere around $170,000 a year," Bennett said, and described an annually produced spending plan the county has presented to the commissioners. Bennett said the opioid funds sit outside the general fund and are allocated annually over the coming years.

County attorney Attorney Beeman summarized the remnant-defendant settlement and said the national settlement pool is $97,000,000; assuming all entities participate, Allegany County's share was estimated in the meeting at roughly 0.03764% of the total, which the attorney said equates to about $37,000 as a one-time payment to the county's opioid restitution fund. The board voted to participate in the settlement and to return the participation form to trial counsel.

The action is procedural: the vote commits the county to participate in the remnant-settlement distribution process. Commissioners and staff said existing task-force procedures will govern how any new funds are allocated; Major and other residents pressed the board to provide a line-by-line accounting to the public of how every opioid settlement dollar is being spent.