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Advisory panel recommends $200,000 in opioid-settlement grants to six Avery County nonprofits
Summary
An advisory committee recommended distributing $200,000 of Avery County's opioid-settlement funds among six nonprofit programs; staff will return to the board later in June with an authorizing resolution and agreements for the awards.
Sarah Price, presenting the opioid-settlement advisory committee's recommendations, told the Avery County Board of Commissioners the committee reviewed six applications and proposed funding that would total $200,000 if the board accepts its package.
"If you were to approve them all for the full funding request, it would be $265,000," Price said, then explained the advisory panel's recommended total allocation of $200,000 and noted the county's settlement fund balance is currently just under $800,000. She said the county receives settlement funds over an 18-year period and the balance fluctuates because of expenditures and interest accrual.
The advisory committee recommended the following awards (request / committee recommendation): Broken Wheel Ministries $35,000 / $35,000; Freedom Life Avery $50,000 / $50,000; High Country Community Health $50,000 / $25,000; Marjorie Williams Academy $55,000 / $25,000; Mediation and Restorative Justice Center $50,000 / $40,000; Western Youth Network $25,000 / $25,000. Price summarized how each organization would use the money, citing workforce-development and youth-mentoring shifts at Broken Wheel Ministries and the alternative-to-suspension education cohorts run by Western Youth Network.
Price said High Country Community Health plans to reduce line-item spending on naloxone and other harm-reduction supplies because a new state program now supplies many items at no cost; the organization will instead allocate more of its requested funds to staffing for behavioral-health services.
The board did not vote on the awards at the June 1 meeting. Price asked commissioners to schedule a brief special session later in June where staff will present an authorizing resolution and memoranda of agreement to be reviewed by the county attorney if the board accepts the advisory committee's package.
The advisory committee's rationale emphasized sustainability: members weighed long-term funding availability across the 18-year settlement schedule and adjusted recommendations to favor programs they judged likely to be sustained or to leverage other sources of in-kind support.
Next steps: staff will return at a special commissioners meeting later in June with a recommended resolution and draft agreements for each organization; final awards will require board action and signed memoranda of agreement.
