More than $7 million in settlement funds designated to help Kitsap address opioid epidemic

Roughly two years after the Washington Attorney General’s Office reached a $518 million settlement with three drug companies who contributed to the state’s opioid crisis, Kitsap County leaders have decided to spend the initial portion of those funds on a variety of primary countywide prevention programs.

The funding stems from an October 2022 settlement between the state and three opioid distributors: McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. The state’s 125 local jurisdictions split half of the settlement.

In Kitsap, the first of those funds – which will be doled out in annual installments over the next two decades – will be used for primary prevention initiatives led by the Kitsap Public Health District and Kitsap County Human Services Department. Some funding will also go toward purchasing and distributing naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses.

More: Naloxone availability expands throughout Kitsap as opioid overdoses continue to rise

“The goal of primary prevention is, if we can stop the start of use or at least intervene earlier, we’re going to see less consequences over time,” said Jolene Kron, clinical director for the Salish Behavioral Health Organization.

Managing settlement funds

Salish is the Opioid Abatement Council for the Olympic Region of Kitsap, Jefferson and Clallam counties. The state requires each region to designate an abatement council to manage and document how local jurisdictions use their settlement funds.

Kitsap County and its four cities will net a combined $7.6 million from the opioid settlement, paid out in installments over the next 17 years.

They will receive those funds in payments of, on average, about $383,000 a year, according to data shared by Kron.

Kitsap County has received two installments thus far and, last February, agreed on how to spend those funds. Payments come each July, with a third expected this summer. A one-time, early payment, which has not been earmarked, was also made in March, Kron said.

The funding comes as Kitsap County experienced record levels of opioid overdoses last year, mostly driven by fentanyl. Emergency personnel responded to 471 suspected overdoses in Kitsap County in 2023, according to data from the Kitsap Public Health District.

Those results are likely an undercount. They only include instances where emergency medical services responded. Many nonfatal overdoses go unreported, health officials say.

Opioids caused 57 deaths in Kitsap County in 2022, according to the Washington Department of Health Overdose Dashboard.

Pooling resources

Kitsap County and the cities of Bremerton, Bainbridge Island and Port Orchard pooled the first two installments of the distributor settlement together to fund regional programs through the health district and county human service department.

Dana Bierman, a program manager for chronic disease and injury prevention for the health district who also oversees substance use prevention, said they will use funds to support the convening of partners around a shared countywide strategy for opioid use and overdose prevention; providing community opioid education; and collecting, assessing and sharing opioid-related data.

Bierman said the health district is developing a contract with Salish covering how to use the funds. The district expects to have that in place this summer. It is unclear exactly how much funding the district will receive, she said.

Meanwhile, the Kitsap County Human Services Department will receive $337,000 over two years to expand “science-based, youth-focused opioid and fentanyl prevention efforts,” said Krista Carlson, a county spokesperson.

Funding will go toward a variety of initiatives focused on youth and adults who support youth. That includes opioid prevention messaging, creating new programs, and increasing outreach activities like events or presentations in the community and at schools.

Additional money will also go towards supporting family-focused after-school activities and events and increasing effort to share information about safe disposal of expired medication.

Contracts for the health district and human services will last two years, Kron said. After that, Salish may change directions and fund different initiatives based on need.

“We want to be adaptable to the needs of the community and really look at what those outcomes are and see if we need to change our strategy,” she said. “We will have more clarity over the next few months as we really start to see funding flow.”

Poulsbo keeps its funding

Poulsbo is the only city in Kitsap keeping its share of distributor settlement, rather than pooling it with others in the county. The city expects to receive about $166,000 over the length of the settlement.

Kim Hendrickson, the city’s director of housing, health, and human services, said virtually all of the city’s funds are going toward the North Kitsap Recovery Resource Center.

The center, which is expected to receive an expansion this summer, provides free treatment and support to anyone who lives, works or is charged with a crime in North Kitsap, including Bainbridge Island.

Hendrickson said the city’s settlement fund covers only a fraction of the substance-use disorder programing. Yet, since the center is funded mostly through grants and state or county allocations, she said the settlement funding provides important leverage for the city.

“While they’re not large in amount, they are sustainable,” she said.

More settlement funds to come

Funding from the distributor settlement represents only a fraction of the millions of dollars Kitsap and its four cities will receive over the ensuing decades stemming from nearly a dozen state and federal lawsuits.

“Funds really haven’t flowed in our community,” Kron said. “We really haven't started to see any of those impacts yet here in Kitsap.”

The five local jurisdictions are set to bring in over $18.4 million in opioid settlement dollars, according to calculations by the Attorney General’s Office last month.

As a whole, the Attorney General’s Office says it has recovered $1.29 billion in settlement dollars. Last month, the office announced it had signed a pending $47.5 million settlement with grocery company Kroger, nearly two years after filing a lawsuit in King County Superior Court.

On March 15, Kitsap County received the first installments from a settlement with pharmacies companies Walgreens, Allergan, Walmart, CVS and Teva. Those installments will bring in about $1.85 million to the three county region, according to Salish documents.

That settlement is expected to be paid out over the next four to seven years. Kron said they have not determined yet how they will spend those dollars.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Opioid settlement sending $7.6 million to Kitsap County programs