Delaware officials recommend nearly $14 million in opioid grants after turbulent two years

The award recommendations were the first to be made by the state’s Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission since its leadership changed under Gov. Matt Meyer. They also came in the wake of a dramatic decrease in overdose deaths in the state.  

If approved by a secondary oversight board, it would be the first meaningful release of grants since news broke last year over the mishandling of the fund, which is derived from $57 billion in nationwide legal settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors.

Delaware is expected to receive $250 million in opioid settlement dollars through 2038. 

At its Monday meeting, the Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission recommended 63 grants, totaling more than $13.9 million to be spread across the state. Initially, the commission only set aside $13 million for the grants, but included an additional $950,000 from grants that were either turned down or forfeited in other grant cycles.

Notably different in this round of grants are the three new tiers of funding available to applicants. 

Organizations had the opportunity to apply for micro, mini and general grants, representing less than $10,000, less than $30,000, and greater than $30,000, respectively. 

All of the grants were approved without any friction during Monday’s meeting, with multiple members of the commission recusing themselves from votes where a conflict of interest was present.

Brad Owens, the director of the commission, said there are approximately $1 million in “open grants” that have yet to be distributed to previous grantees. One reason he pointed to is the recent transition from day-to-day operations of the fund from the lieutenant governor’s office to the state’s substance abuse department. 

Owens also said the commission intends to hire a consultant to examine inpatient treatment and long-term care options for people with addiction in the state, following reporting from Spotlight Delaware earlier this year and calls from lawmakers. 

The grant requests approved on Monday will go for a final approval before the Behavioral Health Consortium, a second parent board to the POSDC that approves the opioid grants, on Wednesday. 

This may be the final time the Behavioral Health Consortium is required to approve the grants, however, as a new bill works its way through the legislature, removing the lieutenant governor and attorney general from their roles in opioid grant approvals and splitting off the work of the POSDC. 

The bill is scheduled for a vote in the Senate Health and Social Services Committee on Wednesday.

New leadership for POSDC

At the start of the meeting on Monday, Attorney General Kathy Jennings announced her likely departure as co-chair of the commission, a position she’s held since the inception of the grant program.

She praised the leadership of her new co-chair, and likely to be sole chair, Joanna Champney, saying her efforts have brought the commission to its “most effective place yet.” Jennings also praised Owens “for making sure that [grants] that are recommended for approval today are truly going to make a difference to the people we serve in Delaware.”

“It has been the honor of my life to help secure the resources and to steward them with all of you,” Jennings said.

Not all of the commission members fully supported the idea of having a single chair of the commission, saying it could diminish “checks and balances” within the program. 

Dave Humes, a founding member of the nonprofit atTAcK addiction and the father of a fatal overdose victim, pointed to the removal of the co-chair position, which he said consolidates much of the power in the commission to a governor-appointed chair.

“I just think that’s an awful lot of power, and I’d like to see checks and balances,” Humes said during the meeting. 

Delaware’s opioid fund has yet to release any substantial funding since 2023. Last summer, Jennings called for a freeze on grants and warned of widespread deficiencies in the program, including potential fraud committed by a Kent County nonprofit. 

Little has been said publicly about the progress of an investigation into that nonprofit.

Soon after Jennings requested a freeze, State Auditor Lydia York wrote to commission members that her office would audit close to a dozen grant recipients. According to that initial letter from July 2024, her office intended to release those audits by the fall of the same year. 

Her office did not release any audits until the end of February 2025, when her office made reports public about four organizations. The four audits found no fraud, but flagged one program for specific overhead expenses. 

Owens said at the meeting Monday that he expects more audits to be made available within a month or two.