To discover how millions in opioid settlement funds are being spent in Idaho, you can visit the state attorney general’s website, which hosts 91 documents from state and local entities getting the money.
What you’ll find is a lot of bureaucratese.
Nearly three years ago, these jurisdictions signed an agreement promising annual reports “specifying the activities and amounts” they have funded.
But many of those reports remain difficult, if not impossible, for the average person to decipher.
It’s a scenario playing out in a host of states. As state and local governments begin spending billions in opioid settlement funds, one of the loudest and most frequent questions from the public has been: Where are the dollars going? Victims of the crisis, along with their advocates and public policy experts, have repeatedly called on governments to transparently report how they’re using these funds, which many consider “blood money.”
Last year, KFF Health News published an analysis by Christine Minhee, founder of OpioidSettlementTracker.com, that found 12 states — including Idaho — had made written commitments to publicly report expenditures on 100% of their funds in a way an average person could find and understand. (The other 38 states promised less.)
But there’s a gap between those promises and the follow-through.
This year, KFF Health News and Minhee revisited those 12 states: Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, and Utah. From their reports, it became clear that some did not fulfill their promises. And several just squeaked by, meeting the letter of the law but falling far short of communicating to the public in a clear and meaningful manner.
Take Idaho, for instance. Jurisdictions there completed a standard form showing how much money they spent and how it fell under approved uses of the settlement. Sounds great. But in reality, it reads like this: In …