CARIBOU, Maine — A new task force to recommend how Aroostook County spends nearly $2.7 million in opioid settlement funds will meet next week.
County officials, earlier this year, invited community members to be part of a nine-member task force to help commissioners decide where to allocate $2.69 million that Aroostook will receive over the next 14 years.
Members of that task force will hold their first public meeting on Tuesday, June 11, at Caribou Superior Court.
The settlement funds come from national litigation against pharmaceutical companies for their role in the opioid epidemic. More than 26.6 million prescription pain pills, including oxycodone, were supplied to Aroostook residents from 2006 to 2014, according to data compiled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and analyzed by the Washington Post.
The top five opiate distributors in Aroostook County were Cardinal Health, 8.5 million pills; McKesson Corp., 5.4 million; Walmart, 4.3 million; Eckerd Corp., 3.1 million; and Rite Aid, 2.1 million, according to the Washington Post.
Aroostook has received $694,743 in settlement funds so far, and commissioners have allocated $75,000 in the 2024-2025 fiscal year budget for the county jail’s medication-assisted treatment program for inmates, according to Finance Director Dana Gendreau.
Nine task force members have voting privileges. They include Jon Holabird, chair of Recovery Aroostook; Erik Lamoreau, project coordinator with Aroostook Mental Health Center; Freeman Corey, social worker at Caribou Community School; Christina Wall, emergency services clinical consultant and supervisor at AMHC; Amy Ward, victim and witness advocate with Aroostook County District Attorney’s Office; Brooke Nadeau; MSAD 27 learning facilitator for continuing education; Courtney Gary-Allen, organizing director at the Maine Recovery Advocacy Project; Samuela Manages, family practice physician for Cary Medical Center; and Michael Greenlaw, owner of Greenlaw Electric in Fort Fairfield.
County Administrator Ryan Pelletier, Gendreau and Aroostook County Sheriff Peter Johnson are non-voting members of the task force.
Pelletier said that he and colleagues wanted the task force to include people who have gone through substance use recovery themselves, seen family members go through that experience, or worked with people who have faced those challenges.
“Who better [to make these funding decisions] than the people who know what has worked and hasn’t worked in their own lives,” Pelletier said.
Maine is receiving $235 million in opioid settlement funds, with 50 percent going to the Maine Recovery Fund, 30 percent to local governments and 20 percent to the Maine Attorney General’s Office, according to information published on Aroostook County’s government website about Tuesday’s task force meeting.
Although the Maine Recovery Council, operating the recovery fund, must create a dashboard for recording funds spent, local governments and the Attorney General currently are not required to report how they spend their funds.
That has led to concerns on how some Maine municipalities and counties have spent their funds. Many have allocated most funds toward existing support programs, especially those within law enforcement. Recovery advocates argue that new and non-law-enforcement programs should take priority.
Pelletier said that when the task force meets Tuesday they will discuss how other communities have spent settlement funds and how Aroostook’s monies could best go toward helping people who need recovery services.
For example, Pelletier will bring up the possibility of establishing an application-based grant program for Aroostook municipalities and nonprofit organizations, much like what the county did with its federal American Rescue Plan Act funds.
“There are a lot of organizations trying to do good things to combat this crisis, but a lot are volunteer based and don’t have much resources,” Pelletier said.
The task force will make recommendations to county commissioners on how to best formulate any grant programs and how to spend settlement funds, but commissioners will have the final say, Pelletier said.
Task force members will meet at 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 11 at Caribou Superior Court, 144 Sweden St., in the courthouse’s administrative hearing room. Members of the public can attend in person or via Zoom. Details on how to access the Zoom meeting are available on the Aroostook County government website.
