Drug policy experts and advocates said Monday they’re furious as New York leaders celebrate reduced overdose deaths in the state while sitting on hundreds of millions of unspent opioid settlement dollars meant to address the epidemic.
New York is one of 46 states receiving millions of dollars each year from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors for addiction prevention, treatment and recovery services to combat the overdose crisis.
Drug policy expert Rob Kent said over $200 million in opioid settlement funds sits idle, waiting for the Office of Addiction Services and Supports to decide how and where to spend it. The state has received over $500 million in the first three years of the record-breaking settlement with opioid manufacturers.
“With all this urgent need, only $144 million has actually gone out the door so far through mid-May 2025,” Kent said. “That doesn’t mean that some of that money hasn’t been spent…but suffice it to say, I think there’s a bunch of money that’s available that hasn’t been.”
Kent, the president of Kent Strategic Advisors LLC, received the data from OASAS via a Freedom of Information Law request and shared the data with Spectrum News 1.
The state claims it has made $407 million available to date, but Kent said much of that is going through a sluggish contracting process.
“This funding is listed as ‘made available’ rather than ‘distributed’ on the state Opioid Settlement Fund Tracker, reflecting the Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Board’s request for multi-year contracts to ensure long-term sustainability,” a spokesperson with OASAS said in a statement Monday. “While some funds have already been disbursed, additional payments will be made in coming years as per these contracts.
“These initiatives cover the full continuum of addiction services, and, in addition to treatment services, are supporting things like transportation, workforce support, purchasing of naloxone and harm reduction supplies such as fentanyl and xylazine test strips, and awareness campaigns,” the department added. “All of these meet the [board’s] recommendations.”
Members of the state Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Board will meet Tuesday for the third time this year.
Advocates and some lawmakers argue the agency’s existing online tracker isn’t transparent enough in showing the settlement dollars go.
“What’s the plan to spend the money, and if it’s not moving quickly, what’s the hold up?” Kent said.
The state had 17% fewer overdose deaths last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Fatal drug overdoses are on the decline, but not in certain communities of color or urban areas.
As overdose-related fatalities threaten to climb, board members are urging state leaders to listen to the group of experts they created to advise them how to spend the money most effectively.
Board member Ashley Livingston, co-chair of the Friends of Recovery in Warren and Washington counties, said the board has been requesting more data and transparency from OASAS for three years to no avail.
“It almost feels like we ask a question, we never get answers,” Livingston said Monday. “Or we’re told, ‘it’s not in our purview,’ but then at a later meeting, we’re told, ‘oh well you should have asked the question like this if you wanted an answer.’ Oftentimes, I feel gaslit. And it does impact the [board’s] morale, I think. Some of us have been like, ‘what are we even doing?’ Because I don’t know that we’re being heard.”
OASAS has turned over nearly $150 million to local governments as the settlement requires.
“New York’s counties have been on the front lines of the opioid epidemic for decades, leveraging their deep community ties and public health infrastructure to meet the crisis head-on,” New York State Association of Counties Executive Director Stephen Acquario said. “With the understanding that the fight against this epidemic will be long and complex — and that these settlement dollars represent a one-time infusion — counties are acting strategically to ensure that every dollar is invested wisely to build a strong, lasting foundation through evidence-based education, prevention, and treatment programs that meet the unique needs of their communities. We remain committed to working alongside the state to continue driving down opioid-related deaths and protect New Yorkers from this devastating scourge.”
Kent said it’s unclear how the agency will decide to use the funding to mitigate impacts of future federal policy decisions.
“[With] what happened in Washington the last couple of weeks, it could become a bigger issue that you’ve got all this money, what are you doing to use it now, not just to get it out in the field, to help providers and help people get help?” he said.
In February, OASAS Commissioner Chinazo Cunningham defended the process to lawmakers at an annual budget hearing, and said the state has distributed about 36% of the settlement funds so far — or faster than any other state.
New York receives the largest amount of opioid settlement dollars in the nation. The state’s funding is being allocated in accordance with the priorities of the settlement board as detailed in its annual reports, according to OASAS on Monday.
Assemblyman Phil Steck, chair of the Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Committee, said state agencies have expected the Legislature to act as advocates for Hochul’s administration in dispersing the opioid settlement funds.
“That is not our function — our function is oversight,” Steck told Spectrum News 1 on Monday. “We don’t agree that the money is being used as intended.”
The opioid settlement funds were intended to supplement state support for treatment, recovery services, education and other programs, he said.
“It was always our sense that they were trying to hold money in reserve so they didn’t have to devote more resources to substance use treatment…they could just use the settlement funding for it,” Steck explained. “The settlement funds were not supposed to displace existing funding. They were supposed to be in addition to it, but it was our sense of understanding that that was not really the case.”
The board has clashed with state leaders about recommendations to get the money out the door, and a lack of workers in the field also slows down the process.
Steck said he is working to draft legislation to give the Legislature more oversight of where funds are spent and how quickly. The Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Board was created to be a public group that provides recommendations to OASAS, but does not have a say in how the funding gets dispersed.
The funding must go through the department’s procurement process, which can be sluggish.
“That explains why this money is not in the field,” Steck said. “…We’re kind of in a holding pattern. We are looking at reviewing what has been done with respect to transparency and trying to do better.”