City to receive funds from opioid settlements
A resolution on the consent agenda of the Hot Springs Board of Directors’ Oct. 19 business meeting authorizes the city to participate in settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors.
The resolution empowers the mayor to execute subdivision settlement forms on the city’s behalf.
“Several months ago the city did agree to participate in multi-jurisdictional litigation against certain manufacturers and distributors of opioids,” City Attorney Brian Albright told the board Tuesday. “The attorney general’s office and Arkansas Municipal League participated on behalf of the city of Hot Springs and others in that multi-jurisdictional litigation.
“(The resolution) would authorize the city to execute its acceptance of those settlements. We won’t know the exact amount of the proceeds until the distributions are made. That will be facilitated through the attorney general’s office. This would authorize our continued participation in those settlements.”
The resolution authorizes the city to participate in the $216 million settlement the state received earlier this year as part of the multistate $26 billion settlement with pharmaceutical distributors, McKesson, Cardinal Health and Amerisource-Bergen and opioid manufacturer Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
“This is the first bit of settlement,” Arkansas Municipal League Executive Director Mark Hayes said at last week’s news conference announcing that the AML, Association of Arkansas Counties and attorney general’s office had reached an agreement on how to distribute the $216 million. “We have another 60plus defendants in the lawsuit we’re engaged in.”
According to a news release from the attorney general’s office, the money will be used to “combat the opioid addiction epidemic at the state, county and city levels.”
“It will be broken three ways between the state, cities and the counties,” Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said at last week’s news conference. “Of that, we will pay our attorneys fees, and then the money will go back into a pot that will be in a commission. The commission will be through special legislation that will either be created in a special
session or at the latest the fiscal session in 2022.
“They will determine how the money will be most beneficial in the future and include members from the city and county level to make sure those on the front lines have a voice.”
According to the Oct. 7 memorandum of understanding between the state, cities and counties, the four-member commission will be appointed by the governor, attorney general, AML and Association of
Arkansas Counties. The MOU listed numerous approved uses of the funds, including treatment of Opioid Use Disorder, supporting law enforcement expenditures related to the opioid epidemic, preventing over prescribing of opioids and reducing and preventing opioid overdose deaths.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the state had 515 overdose deaths last year, a 40% increase from the 2019 total.