Kootenai County commissioners debate whether to bring opioid settlement fund administration in-house

Kootenai County commissioners on March 24 debated whether to bring management of the county's opioid settlement funds back under the Board of County Commissioners or leave administration with the Office of Emergency Management (OEM). The board agreed staff should solicit proposals and that OEM will continue vetting requests before they come to the board.

Commissioner Blind pressed for a more aggressive approach to spend the funds, saying, "having this money and sitting on it and not spending it is, you know, to me offensive to the families who have lost all their loved ones as a result of this." Blind said he favored seeking ideas that focus "further upstream before people get afflicted with these drugs as opposed to doing actual treatment afterwards."

Tiffany Westbrook, director of OEM, told the board OEM agreed to administer the funds after a BOCC staff member left and has relied on subject-matter guidance from the Attorney General's office to vet candidate expenses. "We are not experts in opioids," Westbrook said, and OEM has sought AG input so the county has subject-matter expertise before requests reach the board. She added that ultimate policy and risk decisions remain for the BOCC.

Westbrook reported that since 2022 "we've received $1.6 million in opioid funds and we've expended over 500,000," and stressed that counties interpret the criteria for allowable uses differently. She and other speakers said the AG's office provides an annual-reporting and interpretation framework — described in the discussion as "Exhibit A" — that most counties use to determine whether a proposed expense matches the intent of the settlement funds.

Several commissioners suggested staff compare Kootenai County's approach with other counties that have spent more of their allocations to identify lawful, effective programs that could be adapted locally. Commissioners discussed two related but distinct roles: OEM's ongoing fund administration (tracking, documentation, and vetting) and any separate effort to design or champion new prevention or education programs. Westbrook said OEM will vet and administer funds but will not itself build new programs without a separate lead to champion such work.

The practical result of the discussion was agreement that county staff should proactively seek ideas from department heads and review peer counties' approaches, with OEM serving as the vetting partner. Board members characterized the approval to proceed as a cautious consensus: staff should collect and forward potential uses for OEM review and then present vetted requests to the board for final policy decisions.

Later in the meeting the board voted to enter executive session "pursuant code 742061B." The board took roll-call votes to enter and later to exit the executive session; on exiting the board directed staff to proceed as discussed during the closed session. The meeting adjourned at 10:25 a.m.

What happens next: staff will be asked to collect proposed uses from department heads and report back, with OEM continuing to review proposals for consistency with the funds' intent before the BOCC makes final decisions.