While the money doesn’t add up to the the toll of the massive public health crisis, it is intended to help with some of the ongoing damage. From 2010 to 2019, opioid overdoses claimed the lives of more than 23,700 Ohioans, with countless others having had their lives torn apart by opioid addiction in other ways.
“We need to get it into prevention, so this doesn’t happen again. We need to get it into treatment, recovery, and also public awareness has to be paramount with this too,” said Montgomery County Commissioner Judy Dodge.
It’s not clear when the money will start to be distributed. Details are still forming day to day on how the money will be handled, as the state and each region develops their committees and boards.
The state has been carved up into 19 regions.
There’s also a state board and Dodge, the local region’s representative on the state board, said that what they will generally be doing at the local committee level is selecting projects that will be submitted to the state board for approval.
“Then that money will be sent directly to that entity,” Dodge said.
Dodge is also the board chair for the Montgomery County region’s governance board that was formed to locally administer the OneOhio settlement. Montgomery County is its own region by itself and on April 12, the county commissioners approved they would participate in the governing structure that local officials set up.
The settlement, which is scheduled to be paid over 18 years, also calls for a continuous annual flow of settlement money, meaning that the distributors can pay extra in a given year, but that additional money will come off the back end so that there is no disruption of payments.
OneOhio has been incorporated into the settlement, with 85% of the settlement money targeted for local distribution:
- 55% goes to a foundation created to disburse the money and fund programs that benefit Ohioans affected by opioids and/or prevent addiction.
- 30% is earmarked for community recovery programs at the local level.
- 15% goes to the state of Ohio.
In addition to the monetary settlement, Cardinal, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen must also make significant internal changes to help prevent a similar crisis, such as give an independent clearing house their aggregated data on where the drugs are going and how often.
OneOhio regions
Ohio was carved into 19 regions, which will each recommend what gets local funding from the opioid settlement. Counties in the Miami Valley are part of three of those regions.
Region 8: Montgomery County
Region 15: Preble, Darke, Miami, Champaign, Allen, Mercer, Logan and Auglaize counties.
Region 14: Clark, Greene, Butler and Warren, Madison, Clinton and Clermont counties.
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