Louisville has received another $2.9 million from the lawsuit settlements with pharmaceutical companies that fueled America’s opioid crisis.
Mayor Craig Greenberg wants to spend the money on addiction treatment and prevention, including significant funding for programming aimed at Jefferson County Public Schools students. This is the fourth round of opioid settlement funding the city is distributing. In 2023, Louisville appropriated the first $1.5 million to overdose prevention programs like Narcan distribution and HIV and hepatitis C testing. Another $5.3 million went to 21 community groups last year and Goodwill’s Another Way Program and the city’s Substance Use Services Center received $6.6 million.
Outlining his spending proposal, Greenberg said during a press conference last month that the city has used opioid settlement money to save lives.
“It will help individuals who are in crisis, it will prevent individuals from becoming in crisis and it will continue to help reduce the amount of people who find themselves homeless in our city,” he said. “I’m proud of the work we are doing.”
The proposed spending requires Metro Council’s approval. Council members will meet on Thursday night to debate and vote on Greenberg’s plan.
America’s opioid crisis began in the 1990s with a wave of overdose deaths due to prescription opioids. A government crackdown on pill mills and overprescription led to a second spike in overdoses in the 2010s, this time mainly involving heroin.
In Kentucky, overdose deaths increased by nearly 50% in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and fentanyl flooded the illegal drug market. In 2023, the last year for which statewide data is available, nearly 2,000 people died of overdoses in Kentucky, including 496 in Jefferson County.
Louisville Metro is expected to receive a total of $57 million from various opioid settlements.
School prevention programs and services
The largest tranche of funding included in Greenberg’s $2.9 million proposal would go to in-school and after-school programming.
Public health officials say they want to use $1.6 million of that to focus on a range of addiction prevention strategies. First, they would focus on in-classroom programming to try and stop kids from developing addictions in the first place.
Ben Goldman, Louisville’s assistant director of harm reduction services, told a Metro Council committee last week that the money would also go to increasing access to mental health services for kids who are most at risk of developing unhealthy behaviors.
“We really want to highlight the need for better mental health care, better linkage to services for high-risk young people who have experienced trauma or who are experiencing mental illness and don’t currently have access to mental health services,” Goldman said.
The city’s prevention strategies also include “an environmental goal,” Goldman said. They want to expand access to meaningful after-school activities and safe spaces.
City officials are proposing to hire a nurse to manage medication, screenings and referrals for students, as well as up to five community health workers who can help young people and their families take advantage of social services.
The $1.6 million would also cover the cost of hiring three program coordinators for in-school prevention classes and adding prevention education to the YMCA Childcare Enrichment Program, which is offered at numerous YMCA locations across the county.
Diversion program for people experiencing homelessness
The proposal in front of Metro Council also includes $700,000 in funding for a diversion court docket for people experiencing homelessness.
In January, Jefferson County District Court officials organized the first hearing specifically for people who had been cited for “unlawful camping” under the Safer Kentucky Act. People who received citations for living on the street were encouraged to show up and connect with organizations like the St. John Center and the Coalition for the Homeless.
The goal was to get people connected with housing services and help them avoid receiving bench warrants for failing to show up for their court date. If a person connected with a service provider, and that provider could tell they judge that they were still in contact with them a month later, then their unlawful camping citation would be dropped.
The Greenberg administration says it wants to use opioid settlement money to formalize the process and show judges concrete outcomes.
“Diversion will provide screening and assessment for identifiable service needs, such as treatment and case management,” said Kevin Trager, a spokesperson for Greenberg. “The program will include progress measurement for the court to ensure service goals are being met.”
Trager said participation will be voluntary. They plan to contract with a local service provider to do the screening and case management. The city will select a provider through a competitive request for proposals process, he said.
Some Metro Council members pushed back against this proposal during a Budget Committee meeting last week.
District 3 Democrat Shameka Parrish-Wright, who also heads the nonprofit VOCAL-KY, questioned why the funding is necessary, given that the judges, lawyers and service providers already involved with the unlawful camping docket say it’s not costing them much money. And District 6 Democrat J.P. Lyninger said he was concerned about the lack of details for how the diversion program will actually work.
The committee approved Greenberg’s proposal 8-0-2, with Parrish-Wright and Lyninger voting “present.”
Casey’s Law and funding outcomes
The smallest appropriations in this round of opioid settlement spending would be $315,000 to improve enforcement of Casey’s Law and $300,000 evaluate the effectiveness of all the programs being funded.
Casey’s Law, named after Matthew Casey Wethington, who died of an overdose in 2002, allows parents, relatives or friends of a person in addiction to petition the court to force them into treatment. The person facing court-ordered treatment is given an attorney and has to undergo two mental health evaluations.
The Greenberg administration said the funding proposal came out of conversations with the Jefferson Circuit Court Clerk’s Mental Health Division. It will help families pay for the mental health assessments.
The remaining funds would help the city pay for a contract with an outside agency that can evaluate the outcomes of the various programs and nonprofits that have received opioid settlement funds.
The Metro Council meeting is Thursday, March 13 at 6 p.m. at City Hall downtown. It is open to the public.
