Budget committee again stalls latest plan for opioid settlement funds

by Erik Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner
April 22, 2024

A state health department plan to focus on prevention with the next round of funds from a multistate legal settlement with opioid manufacturers and distributors has been blocked by the Legislature’s budget committee.

The Republican leaders of the Joint Finance Committee had a deadline of Friday, April 19, to either let the plan go forward or to object to it under a passive review process, which was written into the 2021 law authorizing the state to accept the annual settlement money.

On Monday the committee leaders disclosed that they had registered an objection to the 2025 settlement funds plan, but there was no statement explaining their reasons. The action was not unexpected, however; the committee’s GOP majority has rewritten the previous two plans submitted by the Department of Health Services (DHS).

Wisconsin expects to receive a total of $750 million over several years from settlements reached in national lawsuits that state and local governments filed against pharmaceutical companies that produced opioid drugs. Roughly 70% of the money will go straight to local governments and 30% to the state.

Wisconsin gets a payment each year under the settlement program, and under legislation enacted in 2021 the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee retains the right to change the state’s plan for each year’s payment.

The state will get $36 million to be distributed from July 1 through June 30, 2025. In rolling out the plan for those funds earlier this month, DHS Secretary-designee Kirsten Johnson said the department hoped to spend $15 million of that on prevention, peer support for people struggling with addiction and support programs for their families.

Johnson said that the latest plan took into account changes the committee has made in the department’s plans for 2023 and 2024.

The 2025 plan includes $1 million to continue supplying law enforcement agencies with Narcan so first responders who were called to aid people experiencing an overdose could act quickly to reverse its effects. Lawmakers added that provision to the DHS plan for 2023. 

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