Are States Keeping Their Promises on Opioid Settlement Transparency?

It’s been about two years since most states began receiving millions of dollars in opioid settlement payments from companies that made or distributed prescription painkillers. But whether you can track how that windfall has been spent depends largely on where you live.

That’s because there is no federal standard dictating the information that must be made public. That determination falls to states.

Christine Minhee, founder of OpioidSettlementTracker.com, found last year that 12 states promised to publicly report expenditures of 100 percent of their funds in a way any person could find and understand.

But when Minhee and I checked up on those states this year, we found a significant gap between meeting the letter of the law and actually communicating to the public in a clear and informative manner.

Take Idaho. The attorney general’s website hosts more than 90 standardized spending reports from state and local entities. Sounds great. But in reality, it reads like this: In fiscal 2023, the city of Chubbuck spent about $39,000 on Section G, Subsection 9.

Cracking that code requires a separate document. And even that provides only broad outlines.

G-9 refers to “school-based or youth-focused programs or strategies that have demonstrated effectiveness in preventing drug misuse.”

“What does that mean? How exactly are you doing that?” asked Corey Davis, a project director at the Network for Public Health Law, when he first saw the Idaho reports.

Does a school-based program involve hiring mental health counselors or holding a one-time assembly? Without details on the organizations receiving the money and the projects being pursued, it’s impossible to know where the funds are going. It’s like saying 20 percent of your monthly salary goes to food. But does that mean grocery bills, eating out at restaurants or hiring a cook?

The Idaho attorney general’s office, which oversees the state’s opioid settlement reports, did not respond to requests for comment.

In New Hampshire, the state government controls 85 percent of the state’s settlement funds and posts reports from grant recipients on its opioid abatement website. The reports explain the projects and populations served but lack a key detail: how much money each organization received.

To find dollar figures, you have to search through the opioid abatement advisory commission’s meeting minutes, which date back several years, or search the governor and executive council’s meeting agendas for the proposed contracts. Typing in the search term “opioid settlement” brings up no results. Searching “opioid” instead surfaces results about opioid settlements as well as federal opioid grants. To tell which results are relevant requires opening each link.

People in recovery, parents who lost their children to overdose and others interested in the money “shouldn’t have to go click through the meeting notes and then control-F and look for opioids,” Davis said.

James Boffetti, New Hampshire’s deputy attorney general, who helps oversee the opioid settlement funds, defended the state’s reporting. “It’s all publicly out there,” he said. “We’ve certainly been more than transparent.”

Check out the whole series for more information on the opioid settlements and how the money is being used across the country.

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