This share is distributed directly to the state’s 87 litigating cities and counties according to Exhibit A of the Wisconsin Local Government MOU.[1] Each are required to set up a separate fund to hold their opioid settlement proceeds that may not be comingled with other monies of the local government.[2] Local governments may allocate their shares to other political subdivisions and can combine their shares with one another.[3]
Up to 20% of this share may be spent as attorneys’ fees.[4] Excepting administrative costs,[5] the remaining funds must be spent on the uses described in the national settlement agreement’s (non-exhaustive) Exhibit E,[6] which includes prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and other strategies.
Local governments decide autonomously. Decisionmakers for the counties and cities will ultimately decide for themselves how to spend their monies on Exhibit E uses.[7]
Yes, supplantation is prohibited. Wisconsin state law explicitly prohibits local governments from using opioid settlement funds to substitute for budgeted funds from other sources.[8] This means that local governments in Wisconsin may only use their opioid settlement funds in ways that supplement — rather than replace (or “supplant”) — existing resources.
Up to each locality (no public reporting required, only intrastate). Opioid settlement expenditures are not officially published in a centralized location for this share. Local governments must submit an annual accounting of their expenditures to the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Joint Committee on Finance,[9] but there is no additional requirement to publish these materials online.
Visit OpioidSettlementTracker.com’s Expenditure Report Tracker for an updated collection of states’ and localities’ available expenditure reports.
Not applicable.
Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(2)(c) (“The settlement agreement or any document that effectuates the settlement identifies 70 percent of the settlement proceeds as payable to local governments in the state that are parties in the opiate litigation”). Wisconsin State-Local Government Memorandum of Understanding (2022 MOU) Sec. A.3 and Wisconsin State-Local Government Memorandum of Understanding for the Allocation of Opioid Settlement Proceeds (2023 MOU) Sec. 3 (“Opioid Settlement Proceeds shall be allocated as follows: (i) 30% to the State of Wisconsin (‘State Share’); and (ii) 70% to Local Governments (‘LG Share’). 2022 MOU Sec. A.7 and 2023 MOU Sec. 8 ((describing direct allocation by formula). Wisconsin Local Government Memorandum of Understanding (Local MOU) Exhibit A. The 2022 MOU and Local MOU apply to the Distributor and Janssen settlements only. The 2023 MOU applies to the Walgreens, Walmart, CVS, Teva, and Allergan settlements. See also Dose of Reality: Opioid Settlement Funds. Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS). Last revised August 23, 2024. Accessed September 1, 2024 (referring to the 87 local governments that participated in the litigation). ↑
Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(4)(b)(1). ↑
Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(4)(b)(4) (power to redirect funds to another locality so long as there is an agreement requiring the recipient locality to use the funds for approved abatement purposes) and Sec. 165.12(4)(b)(5) (“Local governments may combine moneys from their segregated accounts if each local government conforms to the reporting requirement under [Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(4)(c)]”). ↑
2022 MOU Sec. A.5 and 2023 MOU Sec. 5 (restricting all funds to approved uses “[e]xcept for Opioid Settlement Funds expended in payment of attorney fees as provided in Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(6) [Responsibilities for Attorney Fees]”); Wis Stat. Sec. 165.12(6) (“If a separate fund created in a settlement agreement for the opiate litigation is insufficient to pay the entire amount of attorney fees and expenses owed by local governments, a local government may use a portion of the amounts payable to local governments … to supplement amounts owed by the local government for attorney fees and expenses.”) and Local MOU Sec. 2 (“Pursuant to Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(6) a sum up to but in no event exceeding an amount equal to 20% of the total proceeds from the Settlement Agreements attributable to Local Governments shall be deposited into the Attorney Fees Account. … Any excess amounts remaining in the Attorney Fee Fund after funds have been allocated and paid to counsel shall revert back to the Local Governments and the escrow agent shall allocate such sums to Local Governments based on the allocation set forth on Exhibit A, which assigns each Local Government a percentage share”). See also 2022 MOU Sec. A.6 and 2023 MOU Sec. 6 (requiring local governments to report specified information to the Attorney General and Joint Committee on Finance if they use any portion of settlement funds directly allocated to them for attorney fees). ↑
Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(4)(b)(2) (local governments to spend their shares “solely for purposes identified as approved uses for abatement the settlement agreement”) and Distributor Settlement Agreement I.SS (“Exhibit E provides a non-exhaustive list of expenditures that qualify as being paid for Opioid Remediation. Qualifying expenditures may include reasonable related administrative expenses”). ↑
Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(4)(b)(2) (“A local government may expend moneys of the segregated account solely for purposes identified as approved purposes for abatement in the settlement agreement”); 2022 MOU Sec. A.5 and 2023 MOU Sec. 5 (local share to be spent on “purposes identified as approved uses for abatement in a Settlement Agreement” outside of attorneys’ fees); Local MOU Sec. 2 (“A minimum of 80% of the Settlement proceeds attributable to Local Governments shall be paid to each Local Government’s segregated Opioid Abatement Account, which may be expended only for approved uses for opioid abatement as provided in the Settlement Agreements and supporting Memorandums of Understanding”); Distributor Settlement Agreement I.SS (“Exhibit E provides a non-exhaustive list of expenditures that qualify as being paid for Opioid Remediation. Qualifying expenditures may include reasonable related administrative expenses”). ↑
Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(4)(b)(1) (“Moneys in the segregated account are considered moneys of the local government”). See also 2022 MOU Sec. A.7 and 2023 MOU Sec. 8 (describing direct allocation by formula). See, e.g., Milwaukee County Highlights Successes from Initiatives Funded by Opioid Litigation Settlements. Milwaukee Independent. June 3, 2024. Accessed September 2, 2024 (describing county’s five-year strategy for spending its share). ↑
Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(4)(b)(3) (“A local government may not use moneys from the segregated account to substitute for budgeted moneys from the other sources”). ↑
Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.12(4)(c)(1)-(2). ↑