Board overseeing Pennsylvania's $1 billion in opioid settlements criticized for secret meetings

By Ed Mahon of Spotlight PA and Kate Giammarise of WESA, June 1, 2023

The Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust is responsible for ensuring that counties and other local governments appropriately spend hundreds of millions of dollars expected to come their way from settlements with opioid companies.

That money is intended to help Pennsylvania respond to a crisis that kills thousands of people annually in the state.

Before the trust held a public meeting in March, it had been meeting in secret for months, Spotlight PA reports.

Board members selected a bank to administer the funds, discussed how counties are allowed to spend money, and waived a requirement for counties to file spending reports with the trust this year, according to recently released meeting minutes. The minutes appear to show board members cast votes on issues at least six separate times in those meetings.

All of that and more was done outside of the public view — even though the court order creating the trust requires it to operate under Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act.

While trust members began holding public meetings in late March, the members and its administrators have also withheld documents — including ones related to hiring outside entities — from the public for weeks and months after votes.