The Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council has spent months sorting through more than 100 grant applications from treatment providers, community organizations and public agencies. The council will recommend projects for lawmakers to fund with roughly $100 million currently set aside in the state’s abatement fund.
Wendy Bailey, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, said the council is prioritizing proposals that can survive once their grant money runs out.
“These abatement dollars, they're time-limited,” Bailey said. “So we've got to have proposals that have strong sustainability plans because if we start up great programs but there's no sustainability … we're going to lose those services.”
The highest-scoring applications reviewed by the council include projects that would expand clinical treatment capacity, increase housing for people in recovery and support peer-specialist training and prevention work in communities across the state.
Bailey said she is confident the process has established a foundation for years of opioid-related investment, but acknowledged that it will keep evolving as new proposals and data come in.
“There’s good representation on the council, people with lived experience, experts who know what services are needed and there’s always room to strengthen it,” Bailey said.
The council is expected to have around $300 million in settlement money under its purview over the next 15 years.
During its November meeting, the council narrowly decided against tightening its funding rules to ban the use of settlement money for capital improvements on private property. Members discussed the issue after learning that some applicants requested funds to build or expand facilities they owned.
Council member Joseph Scalfani told the group his subcommittee had already decided it would not recommend any projects involving capital building except for those at public institutions, to help ensure the programs lawmakers approve are stable and transparent.
“It has the possibility of propping up an enterprise that might then crater at the end,” Scalfani said.
What counts as abatement?
Even as the scoring process wraps up, some council members are still debating what should be considered legitimate opioid abatement.
Several proposals that scored well came from law enforcement agencies and faith-based recovery centers, prompting questions from members who argue the state should focus settlement spending on treatment and prevention, not policing or programs that reject standard medical practices.
One example is Mercy House Adult & Teen Challenge, a faith-based organization whose application ranked in the second-highest scoring category. Like many Teen Challenge affiliates, the organization’s Sacred Grove women’s recovery center in Raymond does not allow residents to take prescribed medications for addiction or mental health conditions.
Council member James Moore, a recovery advocate appointed by House Speaker Jason White, said that approach can be harmful for people with co-occurring disorders who rely on medication to stabilize their recovery.
“I’m real careful about sending folks to some of the free faith-based facilities, because they sometimes can do more harm than good if a person is suffering depression or anxiety and they're told to leave the medications at the door,” Moore said.
Moore said he hopes every program the state funds is grounded in medical evidence and that organizations like Mercy House are not included on the final list sent to lawmakers.
“There are a lot of them out there that don’t use evidence-based practices, and I hope that maybe through this process, some of the entities that don’t allow mental-health medications in the facilities will realize that it comes at a cost,” Moore said.
A fault line over law enforcement funding
Not everyone agrees that funding policing technology fits the mission of abatement. During discussion of a high-scoring application from the Yazoo County Sheriff’s Department, which requests more than $225,000 to buy license plate readers, Tasers and tablets, one member pressed the council on whether that kind of proposal should be subsidized with settlement money.
“I’m just curious how mass surveillance, how is that responsive to opioid use disorder?” asked Greg Spore, a council member and attorney with the Office of State Public Defender.
Gulfport Police Chief Adam Cooper countered that law enforcement plays a role in prevention by keeping drugs off the streets.
“We’re all talking about the symptoms of drug use. We have talked about nothing to prevent it, and that is what I think has really been missing from all these applications,” Cooper said. “Part of that segment is stopping drugs from even making it to where they’re trying to go.”
Cooper later defended the legality and operational value of license plate reader systems, citing their success on the Gulf Coast.
The council will meet again in December to finalize its recommendations for lawmakers to consider during the 2026 legislative session.
