A collaborative effort between local and state-level organizations in Ohio is addressing the opioid crisis with money from legal settlements with major pharmaceutical companies.
Montgomery County Commissioner Judy Dodge is director of one of 19 regional boards across the state, which help allocate the funds. While the regions vary by size, her region represents just Montgomery County.
WYSO’s Jerry Kenney talked to Dodge about how the settlement money is disbursed to local agencies.
The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Judy Dodge: We've been meeting for about a year and putting the word out, urging whoever needs money tell us, what you need, what kind of money you're talking about.
Well, we received about 85 funding requests for money of almost $4 million.
Then we compiled then a list of what exactly are they're asking for and they had to get an audit from the state. We want to make sure that these companies were just not a fly-by-night company.
We had a panel of our community volunteers that basically dissected each of these 85, and we narrowed it down to 14. So we submitted that information then to OneOhio and they had their own way to decipher this. They had an expert panel up there and they looked at every single thing, made sure everybody had to follow all the rules. And so we felt very comfortable with the expert panel because they deciphered some of these grants.
We were able to give out $3.8 million — almost $3.9 million — to 14 areas: Dayton Children's Hospital, Kettering Medical Center, Wright State, Bridget's Path, etc.
So we're done with the first year. Now we start again next month. I'll go to my meeting in Columbus, and we'll start all over again.
Jerry Kenney: It's got to be difficult when you've got 85 applicants, and you've got to boil those down to 14 distributions. Can you talk a little bit about the criteria that you looked for in deciding those recipients?
Dodge: Yes, we looked at different strategies that they should be looking at. And a lot of it is prevention. You know, we didn't want to pay their hospital bill or something like that. We really geared on the prevention or treatment to get them up and running. And that's what we've told everyone to look for. That's what they look for and then we turned it up then to Columbus and then they went over the final decisions.
Kenney: This collaborative approach from the state level on down, how do you think it's going?
Dodge: Oh, I think it's going wonderfully. We have meetings in Columbus, OneOhio, once a month. We go up and everybody talks about how this is just a drop in the bucket, unfortunately, because when you're addicted you just don't come out of it after a couple of months. Sometimes, it's years and years, and so this is a long haul, long haul, no question about it. Hopefully this money will continue to come down to the different districts and we can keep doing this for years to come.
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Kenney: You mentioned you're just starting the process all over again.
Dodge: All over again, which is just fine, because we had a lot of headaches that first year. Now it's going to be a lot easier. And now I think the public is a little more understanding of what's going on, especially these nonprofits, to be able to fill all this information out. Because we'd get calls all the time.
I'm just delighted, quite frankly, to be head of this. I feel honored. I was voted in by our district and I know we all work hard and I'm just real pleased, and hopefully this is just the beginning of much more money coming and more help for our citizens.
