Frustration, accusations in tense meeting about Michigan opioid funds

• Addiction recovery advocates said funds are not getting to the people on the front lines of the drug crisis
• Meanwhile, members of the state’s Opioid Advisory Commission say their expertise is being ignored
• The commission’s meeting Thursday grew tense at times, with a representative of the Whitmer administration suggesting it’s time to move beyond the past

People in drug recovery vote, and they are not happy.

That was the message several speakers delivered during a meeting of the state’s Opioid Advisory Commission Thursday. It was a gathering that grew tense at times between members of the commission — charged with advising Michigan lawmakers on how to spend Michigan’s share of national opioid settlement funds — and a representative to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

At issue are the state’s recently released budget and the spending decisions for the first payments of about $1.6 billion in Michigan’s share of national opioid settlement funds.

The money will be paid out over 18 years. Half goes directly to counties, cities and townships, and the rest to the state, where officials can choose how to distribute.

“Smaller agencies that are part of the fabric of the recovery community” should be able to tap into those funds, said Deborah Smith, who chairs the board of the Michigan Association of Recovery Community Organizations.

Organizations feel shut out of the process, Smith told Bridge Michigan after the meeting.

Related:

• As crisis rages, Michigan speeds up opioid spending in new budget
• Millions to help opioid users still unspent in half of Michigan’s counties
• One of Michigan’s top doctors hid a secret from everyone. His drug addiction
• How is the state spending its opioid settlement funds? Read our series here.

Not including those providers in the state budget, she told commissioners, “is foolhardy” in an election year.

A handful of recovery advocates attended the normally sparsely attended meeting, saying they feel left out of funding decisions. Dominick Gladstone, who leads community engagement efforts for the commission and is in recovery himself, said they will make their voices heard at election time.

“Don’t forget we’re voters and we’re paying attention,” Gladstone said. Gladstone said he was speaking as a private citizen.

But commission members said they, too, were frustrated.

Chairperson Dr. Cara Poland, an addiction specialist, has previously lamented what she said is a lack of cooperation and communication by the Whitmer administration as the commission tries to make spending recommendations to the Legislature.

On Thursday, her criticism and that of other commissioners were directed at Tommy Stallworth, the sole representative of the Whitmer administration at the meeting. 

The commission was established by a Republican-led legislature in 2022 to advise lawmakers. In contrast, the Michigan Opioids Task Force, which Whitmer established in 2019, advises the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. 

Stallworth suggested the commission is “duplicative” of efforts of the Opioids Task Force, which advises the health department and the governor.

That prompted responses by several commission members.

Commission member and retired Macomb County Judge Linda Davis noted that the Opioid Task Force went without meeting for months and then was expanded in 2022 with new members, while the Opioid Advisory Commission continued to meet regularly.

“We weren’t duplicative at all, because (task force members) weren’t meeting,” she said.

For her part, Poland’s frustration had come to a head last month when the Legislature’s state budget did not set aside money for the commission to conduct a needs assessment survey — something that it statutorily is called to do in order to advise lawmakers in spending decisions.

The budget earmarked most of the funds to peer recovery coach services, tribal communities, a recovery housing project and a handful of recovery organizations, and — the lion’s share — to Prepaid Inpatient Health Plans (PIHPs), or regional community mental health entities, which will flow money to community organizations. 

Stallworth acknowledged a “fractured” process.

“We’ve got the (Opioid Advisory Commission.) We’ve got the Opioid Task Force. We’ve got two chambers, and we’ve got a governance office — all of which need to try and negotiate and get into alignment around (spending decisions,)” he said.

But he said it is time to move forward.

“I'm not personally interested in revisiting and reliving the past,” Stallworth said. “I have no vested interest in doing that… What I want to do is to try to be constructive about what our next steps are going forward.”

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive, told Bridge that the task force plays an important role in the state’s spending decisions. In May, its members laid out spending recommendations for the 2025 fiscal year in each of four priority areas: prevention, treatment, harm reduction and recovery.

She called the task force’s work a success, in part, because it involves representatives from government, advocates and community members from across the state.

“We're made up of a wide diversity of people from different backgrounds … different parts of the state, and I think that we are tasked and our charge is very clear.”

‘A nonpartisan issue’

Poland said she has felt ignored by the Legislature as well. She said she has called members of both parties in the House and Senate to discuss the budget, but received calls back only from staff.

“I have called and left messages repeatedly for each of their offices,” she said.

“So we have never met in person with the four people we're supposed to report to. What does that say about trust?” said Gladstone, referring to Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate.

“If I had some mystery boss I was working for that I never met, I don't know how long I’d keep that job,” he continued. “I feel like Kramer on ‘Seinfeld’ showing up to a job that I don't really have … and then having somebody say ‘We're gonna let you go.’

“This is a nonpartisan issue. There's nothing about this topic that should be political,” added Davis, who also is cofounder of the advocacy group, Face Addiction Now (FAN), formerly Families Against Narcotics.

Davis, a commission member, was frustrated by cuts to FAN’s budget, too.

FAN received $2.5 million of the state opioid settlement funds in this year’s budget, but the state also did not renew the allocation last year to FAN of $5 million, she said.

“This literally cuts our work in half,” Davis told fellow commissioners. “We have started laying off people and we'll have to serve 50,000 less people with this budget cut.”