The council reviewed, scored and ranked 107 grant proposals this year, narrowing them into a tiered list that will now go to the Legislature for consideration during the 2026 session.
But the final meeting of 2025 brought several major shifts to the recommendation list and crystallized deeper disagreements over what counts as opioid abatement, how strictly medical standards should be enforced and whether law enforcement projects belong in the same funding pool as treatment and recovery services.
One of the most significant changes adopted Tuesday was a new requirement that any organization receiving opioid settlement money must allow participants to take medications prescribed by a physician.
Council member James Moore, a recovery advocate, has been one of the most vocal critics of faith-based recovery programs that prohibit antidepressants or medication-assisted treatment.
“I'll guarantee you that's going to influence those who apply on the next go round because there'll be a no-go from the get-go if they think that they can heal someone just off of faith, not using the medical science and the progress that we've made in mental health medications,” Moore said.
Another major point of friction centered on whether opioid settlement dollars should be used for capital improvements on private property, such as mortgage payments or facility expansions at nonprofit recovery centers.
One housing project moved to the top tier after prolonged debate over whether public funds should be used to stabilize privately owned facilities. The council ultimately approved the project’s elevation after adopting a rule to require private entities to serve indigent clients if supported with state money.
The council also revisited whether certain public safety projects should be classified as opioid abatement at all.
Under Mississippi’s opioid settlement structure, settlement funds are divided into two broad categories: abatement and non-abatement. Abatement funds must go towards projects directly tied to preventing overdoses or treating opioid use disorder. Non-abatement funds can be spent on any government project.
Several police and fire department proposals, including funding for license plate readers and officer tablets, were shifted into a list of recommended non-abatement projects. Lawmakers have roughly $14 million in non-abatement settlement funds at their disposal, and council member Andy Taggart argued the law enforcement proposals would be a good fit for that spending.
“It strikes me that they would not be offended if we say, ‘Hey, here’s some non-abatement projects we recommended,” Taggart said.
Taggart also successfully pushed the group to upgrade the ranking of a wastewater drug monitoring proposal. He argued it could help law enforcement find where drugs are being manufactured or distributed before overdoses occur.
“Why don’t we get data when it flows out of the men’s dormitory or the ladies’ sorority house? … And all of a sudden we find out that we have two buildings on campus that are the hot buildings for the entire campus,” Taggart said.
Despite being proud of the council’s work as a whole, Moore said the long review process exposed the weakness in relying solely on volunteer council members to evaluate complex financial and organizational claims.
Moore told the group that Mississippi should hire a professional, independent firm to score applications in future funding cycles before the council conducts its own review. He argued that outside vetting would help verify budgets, detect duplication of services and assess whether applicants' outcome claims are realistic.
“There were some good questions being asked by the council, and we still don’t have the answers to those questions after as much time as we talked about it. But an entity like that could have done that research and that legwork for us,” Moore said.
Under state law, the Mississippi Legislature ultimately control how settlement money is appropriated. When lawmakers reconvene in January, around $100 million will be available to them.
