美国缅因州各地政府已从被指加剧阿片类药物滥用危机的制药公司处获得逾2200万美元和解金，未来15年内预计还将获得近5400万美元。

这笔资金本应用于预防和减少危害的工作，以及治疗和康复计划。但监管力度有限，且直到最近才出台报告要求，这意味着地方官员可以自行决定公开其计划的具体内容。

自三年前开始分配赔偿金以来，倡导者就对一些地方政府的支出选择表示担忧，尤其是涉及警用装备的采购——包括可疑的手持毒品检测设备。

许多市县在如何做出这些决策上陷入困境，因纠结于公平分配资金的 logistical 细节，最终延误了对弱势群体亟需的援助。

为此投入了250万美元的资源中心应运而生：其旨在帮助地方政府合理使用资金，并追踪资金流向数据。截至目前，该中心已制定指南、拨款申请模板和评估标准，并协助处理了地方官员提出的100多项请求。下一个重大项目是建立公共数据仪表板。

缅因州阿片类药物和解支持中心（MOSS）由南缅因大学凯瑟琳·卡特勒研究所运营，于去年夏天利用州检察长办公室提供的阿片类药物和解资金成立。

美国缅因州预计将通过和解协议及破产协议从十余家制药商、分销商和零售商处获得约2.61亿美元赔偿，其中包括奥施康定生产商普渡制药及其亿万富翁所有者萨克勒家族的资产。

今年早些时候签署的协议，包括本月与普渡制药和萨克勒家族达成的最终协议，已为缅因州份额追加了超过3000万美元。不过随着萨克勒家族破产案的最终裁决，这一数字仍可能变动。相关款项将分期支付至2038年。

缅因州的份额分为三部分：50%拨给缅因州复苏委员会；30%分配给39个县市或直接份额细分区域；剩余20%划归州检察长办公室。

该中心的目标是帮助39个直接获得和解金的地区以循证方式使用其份额，并让社区了解资金的使用情况。

这包括创建多个公共数据看板，其中一个将显示资金接收者的使用情况，另一个则追踪资金支出对当地社区的影响。该中心主任林赛·史密斯博士表示，支出数据看板预计将于明年二月或三月上线。

今年早些时候通过的一项法律规定，各下属机构须于一月份首次向总检察长办公室提交年度支出报告。这些报告随后将提交给MOSS中心进行审查分析，之后再递交给立法机构。

该中心正与总检察长办公室合作，鼓励各下属部门使用由中心设计的统一表格提交报告，而非自行制作，以简化流程并实现数据收集的标准化。

该数据看板将成为首个全州范围内公开披露地方政府和解金使用情况的平台。过去两年间，《监察者报》持续努力揭示这些具有里程碑意义的和解协议所涉及的数百万资金流向，包括向39个行政区的当地官员发放详细调查问卷。

司法部长艾伦·弗雷去年向《监察报》透露，当和解金首次发放时，许多地方政府不知从何着手。

"尽管这笔资金数额可观，但终究有限，"弗雷表示，"当前危机的严重性使得如何调配这些资源变得至关重要。我们必须确保现今的投入能为未来18年奠定基础，最终用这些资源弥补所有被告造成的损害。"

人们希望MOSS中心能够提供帮助。

史密斯表示，该中心正在自主开发工具，并与各分支机构直接协作。初期工作重点包括编制《安置资金快速指南》等材料、为地方政府提供拨款申请模板，以及制定评估框架，帮助其判断具体项目是否符合资金使用规定。

过去一年半间，该中心工作人员已与除约克镇以外的所有下属地区建立联系。根据中心提供的数据，他们已为27个地区提供技术及信息支持，协助解决关于社区特定需求的疑问，并在拨款评审过程中协调利益冲突问题。

在多个案例中，该中心与地方政府合作，协助其成立由公务员、成瘾问题专家和康复者组成的委员会，共同决定资金的使用方式。

这一举措对富兰克林县尤为重要。2024年春季，县专员们投票决定解散成立仅一年的阿片类药物和解委员会首届机构。

两年前，当委员会准备审议首批资助申请时，县行政官艾米·伯纳德（Amy Bernard）向《监察报》表示，希望能在年底前拨付资金。然而，利益冲突、过度官僚主义和个人偏见的指控却不断涌现，阻碍了进展，最终导致该组织于2024年4月解散。

数月后，委员们同意重启该工作组，此次有MOSS中心参与其中。该中心协助新委员会制定了资助申请和评分标准，目前所有材料均已在线公布。委员会协调员苏珊·普拉特在回应今年早些时候《监督者》杂志开展的调查时透露了这一消息。

普拉特表示：“最初的流程不如新制定的流程那样清晰明确。”

MOSS中心的外联与宣传协调员珍娜·戈多表示，她和同事的职责就是协助填补这些空白。"有些人虽具备专业能力，但未必拥有制定政策、评审拨款或遴选委员会的实际经验。"

该中心还正与沃尔多县合作，该县近期因未如实说明官员如何使用超过10万美元的和解资金而受到审查。

据该中心透露，此后他们已与县政府多次会面，并参加了新成立的阿片类药物和解金使用特别委员会的会议，期间提供了技术援助及其他资源支持。

牛津县副行政官艾比·沙诺表示，该县于去年年底成立了阿片类药物应对委员会，并需要就拨款流程的最佳实践寻求指导。

该中心为该县量身定制了拨款和评估模板。中心社区研究与评估协调员麦肯齐·戴维定期出席委员会会议，在会上她能够解答有关最佳实践及其他社区如何规划支出的问题。

沙纳尔表示，若没有MOSS中心的协助，委员会的工作将会“困难得多”。

她表示：“处理这些数据原本会耗费我们更多时间，可能还会引发更多疑问。”

该委员会于8月结束了首轮拨款资助申请，并于9月向专员提交了推荐名单。专员们随后批准向五家机构颁发总额45.7万美元的奖金。这笔资金将用于支持地方复苏计划和健康社区联盟项目。

11个下属部门已告知MOSS中心，他们目前不需要协助，或仍在就中心如何提供支持进行初步讨论。截至目前，该中心已完成了123项援助请求，内容涵盖制定资助评审政策到设计数据追踪与报告工具等多个方面。

该中心主任史密斯表示，随着各分支机构需求的变化，他们的角色在未来几年可能会有所演变。司法部长与南密西西比大学（USM）的合同为期五年。她补充说，MOSS中心与地方政府合作越多，就越能分享其他社区的经验做法。

正因如此，该中心正鼓励地方政府要求受资助方追踪项目进展，并共享成果数据以供影响力仪表盘使用。

史密斯表示：“在与社区交流时，我们会说明此举并非要公开曝光数据，而是希望分享哪些措施在本社区行之有效、哪些效果不佳，从而让他人不必从零开始摸索。我们希望通过传播这些经验，避免他人继续浪费资源。”

本文最初由《缅因监控者报》发表，并通过与美联社的合作进行分发。

Local governments across Maine have received just over $22 million in opioid settlement funds from pharmaceutical companies accused of fueling the overdose epidemic, with nearly $54 million more expected over the next decade and a half.

The money is meant to go to prevention and harm reduction efforts, as well as treatment and recovery programs. But oversight is limited, and until recently there were no reporting requirements, meaning it was up to local officials how much they wanted to disclose about their plans.

Since the settlements began distributing the money three years ago, advocates have raised concerns about some localities spending choices, particularly those related to police equipment, including questionable handheld drug-checking devices .

Many municipalities and counties have struggled to determine how those choices should be made, getting caught up in the logistics of how to disburse the funds fairly, ultimately delaying much-needed help for vulnerable communities.

Thats where a $2.5 million resource center comes in: one designed to help the local governments start spending the money appropriately and maintain data on where its going. So far, it has created guides, grant application templates and evaluation rubrics, and assisted with more than 100 requests from local officials. The next big project is creating public data dashboards.

The Maine Opioid Settlement Support (MOSS) Center, run out of the University of Southern Maines Catherine Cutler Institute, was launched last summer with funding from the attorney generals bucket of opioid settlement money.

Maine expects to receive an estimated $261 million in settlements and bankruptcy agreements with more than a dozen pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors and retailers, including with Oxycontin-maker Purdue Pharma and the estate of their billionaire owners, the Sackler family.

Agreements signed earlier this year, like the ones finalized this month with Purdue and the Sacklers, added more than $30 million to Maines share, though that number may still change as the Sackler bankruptcy case is finalized. Payments will be distributed through 2038.

Maines share is split three ways : 50 percent to the Maine Recovery Council; 30 percent to 39 counties and municipalities, or direct share subdivisions; and 20 percent to the attorney generals office.

The centers goal is to help the 39 localities receiving direct payments from the settlements spend their share in an evidence-based manner and to keep communities informed about how the money is being used.

That includes creating several public dashboards, including one that will show how recipients are spending their money and another tracking the impact the spending has on local communities. The spending dashboard is expected to launch next February or March, said the centers director, Dr. Lindsey Smith.

A law passed earlier this year means that in January the subdivisions will be required to submit their first-ever annual report on spending to the attorney generals office. Those reports will then be shared with the MOSS Center for review and analysis, and later, with the legislature.

The center is working with the AGs office to encourage subdivisions to submit their reports using a form created by the center, rather than on their own, in order to streamline the process and standardize the data collection.

This dashboard would mark the first statewide public disclosure of local governments settlement spending. Over the past two years, The Monitor has made an ongoing effort to shed light on how the millions from these landmark settlements are being spent, including by sending out detailed surveys to local officials from the 39 subdivisions.

When the settlement money was first distributed, many local governments didnt know where to start, Attorney General Aaron Frey told The Monitor last year.

While its a significant amount of money, it is limited, Frey said. The crisis is such that it is going to be so important that the way in which these resources are directed today, that it provides that foundation so that over the next 18 years these resources do end up addressing the harm that all of these defendants caused.

The hope is that the MOSS Center can help.

The center is building its own tools and working directly with the subdivisions, Smith said. The early stages were focused on developing materials like a settlement funds quick guide, templates local governments can use for grant applications and rubrics to help them evaluate how particular projects would fit the approved uses.

Over the past year and a half, center staff have connected with all subdivisions except the town of York. They have provided technical and informational assistance to 27 subdivisions, according to data provided by the center, addressing questions about community-specific needs and navigating conflicts of interest during grant reviews.

In several cases, the center has worked with local governments as they established committees of public officials, addiction specialists and people in recovery to decide how the money should be spent.

This was particularly helpful in Franklin County. In the spring of 2024, commissioners had voted to dissolve the first iteration of its opioid settlement committee a year after it was formed.

As the committee prepared to review the first grant applications over two years ago, county administrator Amy Bernard told The Monitor it hoped to get money out by the end of the year. Instead, accusations of conflicts of interest, excessive red tape and personal biases mushroomed, stymying progress and ultimately leading to the groups dissolution in April 2024.

A few months later, commissioners agreed to restart the group, this time with the MOSS Centers involvement. The center helped the new committee develop grant applications and a scoring rubric, all of which is now available online , committee facilitator Susan Pratt said in response to a Monitor survey conducted earlier this year.

The initial process was not as clearly delineated as the newly formatted process, Pratt said.

Jennah Godo, the MOSS Centers outreach and communications coordinator, said she and her colleagues are there to help fill in the gaps. Some people have an expertise that they bring to the table but they dont necessarily have experience in creating a policy or doing a grant review or committee selection.

The center is also working with Waldo County, which recently came under scrutiny for not being forthright about how county officials spent more than $100,000 in settlement funds.

Since then, the center has met with the county multiple times and attended meetings of its new ad hoc committee for opioid settlement spending, according to the center, sharing technical assistance and other resources.

Oxford County, meanwhile, formed an opioid response committee late last year and needed guidance on best practices for a grant process, deputy county administrator Abby Shanor said.

The center tailored its grant and evaluation templates for the county. MacKenzie David, the centers community research and evaluation coordinator, regularly attends the committees meetings, where shes able to answer questions about best practices and how other communities are approaching spending.

The committees work would be a lot more challenging without the MOSS Centers assistance, Shanor said.

It would have taken us a lot longer to process the data. We might have had a lot more questions, she said.

The committee closed its first round of grant funding in August and made its recommendations to commissioners in September, who approved $457,000 in awards to five organizations. The money is being directed to local recovery programs and healthy community coalitions.

Eleven subdivisions have told the MOSS Center they do not need assistance at this time or are still in initial discussions about how the center can support them. In total, the center has fulfilled 123 requests for assistance, ranging from developing a grant review policy to designing a data tracking and reporting tool.

Smith, the centers director, said their role will likely evolve over the coming years as subdivisions needs change. The attorney generals contract with USM is for five years. She added that the more the MOSS Center works with local governments, the more it can share what other communities are doing.

Thats also why the center is encouraging local governments to ask grantees to track their progress and to share their outcome data for the impact dashboard.

When we talk to communities, we say that this isnt about putting your data on blast. Its about being able to say this is what worked in our community, this is what didnt work, so that somebody else isnt starting from scratch, Smith said. We want to get that out there so somebody isnt throwing good money after bad.

___

This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.