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Mount Pleasant plans RFP to allocate roughly $130,000 in opioid settlement funds
Summary
City staff proposed issuing a request for proposals to distribute the city's approximately $130,000 share of opioid settlement funds over 8–10 years; commissioners favored an RFP with oversight, reporting, and prioritization for local providers, but raised questions about award caps and indirect costs.
The Mount Pleasant City Commission during its May 26 work session directed staff to proceed with an RFP process to allocate the city’s opioid settlement funds, which staff estimated total about $130,000 paid over an 8–10 year period.
Manager Desense described the origin and scale of the funds and presented a draft RFP modeled on another Michigan county’s approach. "The city stands to get about $130,000 over an 8 to 10‑year period," Desense said, and recommended an RFP to solicit proposals from entities providing addiction treatment, prevention, or related services.
Commissioners expressed broad support for using a competitive process to ensure accountability. Vice Mayor Ek said an RFP would let the city "screen who is submitting" and require reporting from grantees; the vice mayor asked for an expectation of quarterly or annual reports to ensure transparency and accountability. Commissioners discussed application limits outlined in the draft—$25,000 for one year or $50,000 for two years—and questioned whether that would be sufficiently impactful and how many grants the city could reasonably award given the fund balance.
Commissioner Scalitzki and others urged prioritizing local organizations and giving preference to entities already operating in Mount Pleasant or the county, noting that leveraging existing, local capacity likely produces the biggest local impact. Staff said they would target local applicants first but remain open to strong proposals from outside organizations if local capacity could not meet needs.
On administrative costs, staff noted a 10% allowance in the model language to cover administration or matching costs; commissioners asked whether that was necessary for local groups that already perform the work and asked staff to clarify whether in‑kind match could satisfy that portion.
Manager Desense said staff will finalize the RFP and plans to issue it in late Q3 or Q4 with marketing to local partners. "We'll put this into a final form... I anticipate that we will have this pushed out towards the end of quarter 3, maybe quarter 4," he said.
Next steps: staff will finalize the RFP, set award caps and reporting requirements, calculate allowable indirect costs, and return with a final schedule and scoring rubric for commissioner input prior to releasing the RFP.
