Wisconsin Health News

State lawmakers are moving quickly on a plan that would create a framework for distributing settlement proceeds from a challenge filed by state and local governments against opioid makers, distributors and retailers. 

The full Assembly is set to consider the measure Tuesday, after the Assembly Committee on State Affairs approved the measure last week on a 7-4 vote. All Democrats were opposed to the plan.

The Senate Committee on Health signed off on the measure 3-2 in a similar party-line vote Thursday, after holding a public hearing on the plan last Tuesday. 

The bill would require the attorney general to work with counties on the settlement, with 70 percent of the settlement funds going toward local governments that are party to the litigation and 30 percent to the state. The Joint Finance Committee would have to sign off on the proposed settlement agreement. 

The state’s share would go to the Department of Health Services, which would annually report to the Joint Finance Committee a proposal for spending the money in the next year. The committee would sign off on the plan through its passive review process. 

Seventy-one of Wisconsin’s 72 counties have signed on to the lawsuit, and counties have borne the cost of the epidemic, said Senate Committee on Health Chair Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point. 

“This is common-sense legislation,” Testin said at the Tuesday public hearing. He said the bill would require that all funds be used for abatement purposes, rather than other government functions or to fill budget holes.

The Wisconsin Counties Association supports the measure. 

“We should not wait even one minute longer than we have to to utilize the funds,” Executive Director Mark O’Connell said. 

“This bill is the right bill for counties to be able to serve our citizens who have been affected by this crisis,” Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave said. “We are on the front lines.”

Attorney General Josh Kaul opposes the measure. In testimony submitted to the committee, he said it would be beneficial to set up a structure for distributing funds, but the bill is “fundamentally flawed.” 

Kaul questioned the measure’s constitutionality, saying it would grant a legislative committee oversight for something that is the responsibility of the executive branch. He said legislative review of potential resolutions of opioid matters is not practical.

“Reducing the complexity of these matters to an abbreviated legislative review, without an agreed-upon process for the review of confidential information that protects the interests of the state, is not consistent with meaningful consideration of the issues,” Kaul wrote.

Instead, the bill should provide that opioid matters be resolved at the sole discretion of the attorney general, he said. 

Kaul also raised a concern that a provision would allow local governments to compensate private attorneys using money otherwise designated for abatement, without a cap on such payments. The provision would allow payments even if a national settlement provides a pool of funding specifically for attorneys’ fees. Kaul said the provision could diminish funding for opioid abatement measures throughout the state.