The State Auditor’s office releases a public Prescription Opioid Settlement Tracker amid a mass audit of grant recipients.
The new web tool allows the public to see how funds from the Prescription Opioid Abatement and Remediation Grant Program are being disbursed.
State Auditor Lydia York says the tracker was inspired by a similar tool created for American Rescue Plan Act funds and shows how the monies are distributed in Delaware.
“I would suggest that any time we have independent streams coming in, not just the general fund revenue that everybody hears about, but whenever we get these special streams of income coming, it's likely that we'll be trying to do a tracker because it is special, and I think transparency is a good thing for the state," she said.
The tracker comes after last month’s announcement that the auditor’s office is auditing 11 grant recipients, a decision made after the office flagged nonprofit Code Purple for fraudulent behavior.
Code Purple was referred to the Department of Justice for investigation, and York says in theory, if efforts to claw back the $290,000 distributed to Code Purple are successful and reported correctly, the tracker will reflect that.
York says one entity was inadvertently left off the list sent to the Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission, so there are now 12 grant recipients being audited by the office.
While York initially announced the first round of audit results would be released this fall, she says there is currently no update on that timeline.
“It is difficult for us to anticipate any other things that are going on, shall we say, that might require us to divert resources on the fly, so to speak. And that's why we're being as vague as we are. It's not a matter of failure to disclose, it's just a matter of we want to give ourselves an opportunity to do the work," she said.
The tracker is available to the public on the state auditor’s website and currently shows $13.1 million in grant funding has been approved, while $9.5 million has been distributed.
The state has received close to a total of $63.8 million in settlement funds, but grants are currently on freeze until an outside contractor has the opportunity to evaluate the commission's grant distribution system to help avoid future fraud.
One evaluation report is expected this month, while the other is expected next month.
