This share is distributed directly to participating local governments according to Exhibit B of Minnesota's settlement MOA,[1] which includes:
All counties[2]
Cities with populations of 30,000 or more[3]
Cities that “have funded or otherwise managed an established health care or treatment infrastructure (e.g., health department or similar agency)”[4]
Cities that had “initiated litigation against AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, McKesson, or Janssen as of December 3, 2021”[5]
Localities must set up a separate revenue fund to hold their opioid settlement proceeds separate from other local monies,[6] and cities may opt to reallocate their shares to their counties.[7]
With limited exceptions,[8] this share must be spent on the approved uses described in Exhibit A, which is identical to the national settlement agreements’ Approved Uses list (i.e., Exhibit E) and provides 13 categories of abatement strategies, programming, and services.[9] (For a list of resources specific to each category, see the Department of Health’s Local Public Health Guide to Spending Opioid Settlement Funds).
Additionally, local governments’ uses of funds are restricted to future remediation activities, which prohibits reimbursement uses of opioid settlement proceeds entirely.[10]
Local governments decide autonomously (but must consult each other and report uses). Decisionmakers for the counties and municipalities will ultimately decide for themselves how to spend their monies on Exhibit A’s list of approved uses. To spend their settlement funds, elected city councils and county commissioners must pass a budget or separate resolutions that authorize the use of funds for specific Exhibit A expenditures.[11]
Localities are explicitly empowered to grant their shares to nonprofit organizations and charities and must monitor those uses,[12] and they can also jointly form partnerships with local stakeholders to support community-based initiatives.[13] Localities may pool their shares or use existing regional structures to make joint decisions.[14]
For local governments with public health departments, public health departments serve as their lead agencies and “chief strategists” to identify and respond to local issues and advise on the disbursement of local settlement funds.[15] These local public health departments are required to convene community stakeholders, “should” consult their cities in their development of community health assessments, and are “encouraged” to work with law enforcement “where appropriate.”[16]
Minnesota’s Memorandum of Agreement explicitly requires local governments in the same county area to regularly consult one another on spending priorities.[17] In addition to annually consulting their municipalities, counties must also host an annual public meeting to collect input on spend and to encourage collaboration among local governments “both within and beyond the county.”[18]
No, supplantation is not prohibited. Minnesota does not explicitly prohibit supplantation uses of settlement funds from the 75% local share. This means that counties, cities, and towns may spend their shares in ways that replace (or “supplant”) — rather than supplement — existing resources.
Yes (public reporting required). Visit the Opioid Epidemic Response Spending Dashboard and select “Settlement Funds (City/County) only” in the drop-down menu. All local expenditures must be annually reported to the Department of Human Services,[19] and the Department of Human Services is required to make the expenditure data publicly available.[20]
Visit OpioidSettlementTracker.com’s Expenditure Report Tracker for an updated collection of states’ and localities’ available expenditure reports.
Not applicable.
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Secs. I (defining “Participating Local Government” to mean “a political subdivision within the geographic boundaries of the State of Minnesota that has signed this Memorandum of Agreement and has executed a release of claims by signing on to the National Settlement Agreements”), II.B(ii) (“75% directly to abatement funds established by Participating Local Governments (‘Local Abatement Funds’)”), II.I, II.J (“The Local Abatement
Funds shall be allocated to Participating Local Governments in such proportions as set forth in Exhibit B, attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference”). See also Opioid Settlement Payment Amounts. The Office of Minnesota Attorney General website. Accessed August 8, 2024. ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. II.I(i). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. II.I(ii)(a) (“based on the United States Census Bureau’s Vintage 2019 population totals”). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. II.I(ii)(b). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. II.I(ii)(c). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Secs. III.A-B. ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. II.L (“Any city allocated a share may elect to have its full share or a portion of its full share of current or future annual distributions of settlement funds instead directed to the county or counties in which it is located, so long as that county or counties are Participating Local Governments[s]”). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Secs. I (“Consistent with the terms of the National Settlement Agreements and Bankruptcy Resolutions, “Approved Uses” shall include the reasonable administrative expenses”), IV.A (“counsel for Litigating Local Governments may recover litigation costs, expenses, or attorney fees from the common benefit, contingency fee, and cost funds established in the National Settlement Agreements, as well as the Backstop Fund described in Section VI”), IV.C (capping administrative expenses at 10%), VI.C (“The Backstop Fund will be funded by seven percent (7%) of the share of each payment made to the Local Abatement Funds from the National Settlement Agreements … and will not include payments resulting from the Purdue, Mallinckrodt, or Endo Bankruptcies”) . ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Secs. I (defining “Approved Uses” to mean “forward-looking strategies, programming, and services to abate the opioid epidemic that fall within the list of uses on Exhibit A”), IV.A (“This MOA requires that Opioid Settlement Funds be utilized only for future opioid remediation activities, and Parties shall expend Opioid Settlement Funds only for Approved Uses”). See also Local Public Health Guide to Spending Opioid Settlement Funds. Minnesota Department of Health Website. Accessed August 8, 2024 (“The agreement provides 13 categories of strategies (A through M) that communities can implement using opioid settlement funds as well as a list of specific examples of strategies that fall under the category”). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. IV.A (“This MOA requires that Opioid Settlement Funds be utilized only for future opioid remediation activities, and Parties shall expend Opioid Settlement Funds only for Approved Uses and for expenditures incurred after the effective date of this MOA, unless execution of the National Settlement Agreements requires a later date”). See also Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. I (“Reimbursement by the State or Local Governments for past expenses are not Approved Uses”). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Secs. I (defining “Governing Body” to mean “for a county, the county commissioners of the county, and … for a municipality, the elected city council or the equivalent legislative body for the municipality”), III.C(1) (“Opioid Settlement Funds can be used for a purpose when the Governing Body includes in its budget or passes a separate resolution authorizing the expenditure”), III.C(2) (“The budget or resolution must (i) indicate that it is an authorization for expenditures of opioid settlement funds; (ii) state the specific strategy or strategies the county or city intends to fund, using the item letter and/or number in Exhibit A to identify each funded strategy, if applicable; and (iii) state the amount dedicated to each strategy for a stated period of time”). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. III.D (“Participating Local Governments may make contracts with or grants to a nonprofit, charity, or other entity with Opioid Settlement Funds”); Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement Reporting and Compliance Addendum, Sec. I(f) (“Grant Requirements”). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. IV.E(3). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. IV.D. See, e.g., City, county work to reduce opioid impacts. KAALTV. May 31, 2024. Accessed August 8, 2024 (“In Southeastern Minnesota, the City of Rochester and Olmsted County are joining forces to create change with nearly $2 million in opioid settlement money. It’s a three-prong approach, with Public Health tackling prevention and the Drug and Alcohol Response Team (DART) focusing on treatment and recovery”). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. IV.B. ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. IV.B. ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Secs. IV.E(1)-(2). ↑
Amended Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement, Sec. IV.E(1). ↑
Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement Reporting and Compliance Addendum, Sec. I(a). See also Minn. Stat. Sec. 256.042, subd. 5(d) (“Municipalities receiving direct payments from a statewide opioid settlement agreement must report annually to the commissioner of human services on how the payments were used on opioid remediation”). ↑
Minnesota Opioids State-Subdivision Memorandum of Agreement Reporting and Compliance Addendum, Sec. I(e) (“DHS will publish actual expenditures by settlement agreement recipients in a publicly accessible dashboard or machine-readable data format, such as an Excel spreadsheet”). ↑