While some grant funds have gone toward Narcan and clean needle distribution, the commission now faces calls for better oversight on grantees. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE BY NICK STONESIFER
This article is from Spotlight Delaware, written by Nick Stonesifer .
Nearly three weeks after Attorney General Kathy Jennings sent a letter calling for a freeze to new state opioid grants , Delaware officials awarded $2 million to dozens of nonprofits that provide addiction services across the state.
They approved the money during a heated meeting on Tuesday of the Behavioral Health Consortium that featured several attendees questioning the motives behind Jennings’ June letter , which claimed their grant program was “rife with potential for fraud, waste, and abuse.”
Chaired by Lieutenant Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, the Behavioral Health Consortium is a panel of legislators, advocates and state officials who approve grants to nonprofits that provide addiction services. The grant money is derived from hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds that Delaware has secured in past years from legal settlements with prescription opioid producers, distributors and pharmacies.
During Tuesday’s meeting, the consortium voted overwhelmingly in favor of approving their latest proposed funding — $2 million in grants designed to extend for three months previously approved awards to nonprofits.
Jennings, who is also a member of the consortium, was not present at the meeting. Through a proxy, she abstained from the funding related votes.
Also, during the meeting, many attendees criticized Jennings letter, which had been publicly released on June 30. Among the most critical was Peggy Geisler, a nonprofit executive who claimed the letter amounted to a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
“There’s an election coming up and I really feel like there’s a misuse of, or an opportunity for, others to want to utilize this,” said Geisler, the executive director of the Sussex County Health Coalition.
When reached by phone, Geisler declined to elaborate on her comments.
Jennings is not running for elected office, but Hall-Long is a leading candidate to become Delaware’s next governor.
Hall-Long’s office did not comment on the allegations of political motivation.
Attorney General Kathy Jennings called on Delaware officials to pause their distributions of opioid settlement dollars to nonprofits | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY JOSE IGNACIO CASTANEDA PEREZ
A statement from Caroline De Jose, a spokesperson for Jennings’ Department of Justice, denied that the letter was politically motivated. Instead, she said, the attorney general is advocating for “better guardrails” around the program.
“This is not Monopoly money. These are real dollars that the DOJ fought incredibly hard to secure, and every penny belongs to the public,” De Jose said in an email.
Tuesday’s meeting follows a June 28 meeting of the state’s Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission — a group that makes recommendations for how the Behavioral Health Consortium should spend its opioid dollars.
During that meeting, Jennings made a motion for the state to “begin the process” of recovering as much as $290,000 in grant money that had previously been distributed to the Dover nonprofit Code Purple.
She made the motion after Delaware Auditor Lydia York had sent her a letter to alert the Department of Justice that she found “reason to believe” that dollars awarded to Code Purple were “secured with fraudulent documentation.”
“Despite our best efforts, we have encountered significant challenges in establishing trust regarding the accuracy and authenticity of the documents provided by” Code Purple, York said in her letter.
Delaware’s Open Checkbook shows that Code Purple Kent County received nearly $1 million from various Delaware agencies during fiscal year 2024, which just ended June 30.
Following the June meeting, Jennings sent her letter to her fellow opioid commission members, in which she concluded that all opioid grants should be paused until a consulting company, Wilmington-based Social Contract, completes a report about the industry of addiction resource companies in Delaware.
Code Purple was not included in the Behavioral Health Consortium $2 million grant extension.
‘I’d freeze it all’
During Tuesday’s meeting, Delaware Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown) challenged Jennings’ assertions about the state’s distribution of opioid dollars, and called her letter “a mess.”
Three years ago, Hansen sponsored a bill that created Delaware’s two pots of opioid dollars and she sits on the opioid commission.
Before the letter was released, she said oversight concerns hadn’t been brought to commission members.
She said that Jennings did bring concerns to a May 28 commission meeting, but noted that the attorney general later voted to release funding for future grants.
“If things have gotten to such a level that an incendiary letter like this has to come out accusing everyone on the commission of somehow being in cahoots and sending out money willy-nilly, that’s not going to work for anybody,” Hansen said.
Geisler said the commission’s current oversight caught the alleged fraud, indicating that the process is working. She said one incident shouldn’t impact other applicants.
“I’m in a place in my career where I just feel like this is not about public good, but about political will,” Geisler said.
The meeting’s public comment session saw a majority of speakers call for the release of the $2 million. In response, State Senator Eric Buckson (R-South Dover), a member of the Behavioral Health Consortium, said he would not support more grants.
He questioned how oversight bodies could assure money went to organizations that didn’t just look good on paper. Buckson also had concerns about the impact of these funds once they’d all been spent.
He said the consortium needs to make sure spending isn’t just putting band-aids on bigger problems.
“If I was king for a day, what would I do? I’d freeze it all,” Buckson said.
The opioid commission is scheduled to meet again on Thursday.
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