The Prescription Opioid Settlement Distribution Commission (POSDC) approves $14 million in opioid abatement grants after a year of funding freezes.
The POSDC is in charge of distributing funding awarded to the State of Delaware through legal challenges against opioid manufacturers and distributors.
As of February 2025, the state has reportedly handed out $12.7 million worth of funds and is poised to receive $250 million total in settlement dollars by 2038.
Funding distribution was frozen last July following potential fraud concerns around Kent County nonprofit Code Purple, which is still under investigation.
After a year of deliberating, hiring an outside contractor to evaluate the commission’s grant process and implementing new guardrails, the POSDC is moving forward with its third grant cycle.
$13 million was approved for this round of grants, but close to an additional $1 million is leftover from previous cycles. Of the 122 organizations that applied for funds, over $50 million was requested in total — the commission is recommending 63 grant applications move forward.
“Some folks took major shots, like a $5-6 million project, and we don't have the means for that right now. So cutting those was rather easy in comparison to some, but we tried to make informed cuts. Some of it felt a bit arbitrary, but getting to $13 million was hard," POSDC Executive Director Brad Owens said during the commission's Governance Committee on Monday.
Owens hopes to start distributing funding in September, but federal cuts to the Medicaid program are also top of mind. Owens says he’s not yet sure how the cuts will factor into the commission’s work.
“To be determined, I suppose. I expect there to be impacts for sure, and what role we play in that, in supporting organizations, we don't know. We might have a role," he said.
On Wednesday, POSDC Co-Chairs Joanna Champney and Patty Davis (serving as a proxy for Attorney General Kathy Jennings) appointed Sussex County Administrator Todd Lawson as the new chair of the POSDC's Local Governments Committee.
Owens hopes to begin distributing funding to local governments throughout Delaware in the fall.
