By Melissa Patrick | Kentucky Health News
Kentucky’s local and state governments continue to reap more millions from settlements with drug manufacturers and distributors, and are looking for guidance on how to spend the money to provide relief from the opioid epidemic, as the settlements require.The state is getting $842 million, half of which will be allocated by the state Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, with the other half going to cities and counties. Funds are to be disbursed annually, on various schedules, through 2038.
The head of the commission, appointed by Attorney General Daniel Cameron, envisions a practical, strategic, “flexible and dynamic” process. Gov. Andy Beshear and one of his appointees who serves on the commission want firmer guidelines and a scoring system for grant applications.
At the commission’s Jan. 10 meeting, its treatment and recovery subcommittee set the calendar to start making recommendations for the grant awards, and some members said they need formal guidelines, such as scoring rubrics.
One member said it would be important for the group as a whole to be working from the same guidance. Another said such guidance would allow for transparency and consistency in the selection process.
“We need some common themes from the other groups, as well as ours,” said subcommittee member Van Ingram, director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. “I think we need that before we move forward, so, you know, nobody’s rubber-stamping everything that comes through or nobody’s denying everything that comes through; that we have some common themes we want to look at.”
The next treatment and recovery subcommittee meeting is Feb. 7. Ingram said, “If we don’t have the guidance before Feb. 7 or on Feb. 7, I don’t think we need to be making any decisions. We can discuss. We can look at. But . . . we don’t want to make decisions and then the guidance come later.”
Ingram works for Beshear, a Democrat who is seeking re-election. One of the Republicans running to unseat Beshear is Cameron, who named lawyer Bryan Hubbard chair and executive director of the Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission.
Hubbard was asked Jan. 19 if the guidance Ingram wanted would be forthcoming. He said, “This is not a process by which we can use strict, academically developed, rigid rubrics to assess the viability of a project. We’ve got to think practically, strategically. And we’ve got to be able to recognize what is going on, on the ground, so that we can deliver the necessary resources to advise good work that’s being done. The application process that we’ve come up with gives us the due-diligence tools to ensure we have competent qualified organizations who can participate, and we aim to resource as many of them as well possibly can.”
Meanwhile, Kentucky Health News asked Beshear at his regular weekly news conference if he shared Ingram’s concerns, and he said he did. “Certainly any process where there’s an application for government funds, has to have guidelines, has to have scoring criteria,” he said, adding later, “That is a great concern that they have taken all of these applications without giving organizations . . . the scoring criteria that will be used. So my hope is that we’ll see some major changes.”
Beshear alluded to the election: “This isn’t about me or anybody else in office; this is about wanting to make sure that this money, which is blood money, is used the right way, is used the smart way. And if they don’t come up with criteria, how are they going to tell all the amazing organizations that there might not be enough funding for in this round why? . . . They’re going to need an explanation about why one thing was funded and another wasn’t early on.”
Cameron’s communications director, Krista Buckel, said regulations unanimously approved by the commission and signed by Beshear outline how it will review the grant applications.
“The regulations . . . clearly outline factors for the commission to use in reviewing grant applications,” Buckel said. “These guidelines provide the flexibility necessary for the commission to strategically and adeptly respond to the opioid crisis.”
Hubbard told the Health and Senate Health Services committees Jan. 19 that the commission had received 32 completed grant applications and that 231 more are in progress. He said the total asked by the completed applications is $63.6 million.