Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory council member Greg Spore was hopeful when reviewing applications last fall from organizations looking to prevent and address addiction in Mississippi.
As someone who struggled with addiction for years, Spore thought the tens of millions of lawsuit dollars the state Legislature tasked the council with overseeing could help make the resources that have helped him maintain long-term recovery. He saw some plans to do that in some of the applications he and others were reviewing.
“I’m optimistic,” he told Mississippi Today in October. “Because I think I have to be optimistic.”
That optimism mostly faded after last weekend, when he found out the Legislature had drastically altered the advisory council’s recommendations.
“I’m really just dumbfounded,” Spore said Monday. “I’m just sort of stumped.”
It’s not that he thought the advisory council was flawless. Spore saw and spoke up against council problems when they arose — such as the body favoring applications members were associated with and high variance in the scoring of applications between different subcommittee groups. And it’s not that he isn’t happy with some of the Legislature’s proposed funding decisions.
But lawmakers went further in changing spending plans for tens of millions of opioid settlement dollars than some councilmembers like Spore thought they could. These changes included sending money to groups that had never applied through the advisory council’s application process, according to the council’s public documents.
“We were just sort of stripped of any input, any vetting we had done,” he said.
James Moore, a member of the Mississippi Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council, listens to questions during a meeting at the Carroll Gartin Justice Building in Jackson, Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi TodaySpore is among other opioid overdose prevention advocates and people who’ve struggled with addiction across Mississippi and the country who expressed concern over the Legislature’s recent moves. They worry about lawmakers bypassing advisory council recommendations in its first opioid settlement distributions, misspending money instead of addressing addiction.
The plan lawmakers released goes against what the Mississippi state code they created last year instructs them to do — only accept or reject changes. Seven budget bills show the Legislature plans to change the recommended amounts of money each applicant receives and even some money to groups that never applied for funds.
Lawmakers changed the Department of Mental Health’s spending bill Monday afternoon to replace the agency with Oceans Healthcare, an organization that did apply for opioid settlement money, as the recipient of a $4 million grant to address maternal substance use disorder. The bill’s new version also sends $1 million to South Central Regional Medical Center in Laurel to fund its application.
But there are still other appropriations using money the council oversees for proposals it never reviewed. Lawmakers plan to send the Department of Employment Security $1 million for a new recovery-to-work program, and $4.5 million to community mental health centers for general care purposes. The $4.5 million appropriation is similar to what the Department of Mental Health requested in January in general funds for the organizations.
Lawmakers sent a bill to Gov. Tate Reeves Sunday to let the Legislature change funding amounts from the advisory council’s recommendations. But neither the current opioid settlement laws or the proposed changes instruct the Legislature to appropriate funds that must be spent to address addiction without the council’s review.
Republican Senate Judiciary A Chairman Brice Wiggins, who has been involved in this year’s opioid settlement distribution process, told Mississippi Today on Monday that the Legislature can change laws every year. He said the newsroom was not the interpreter of the law.
Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, speaks during a Senate Education Committee meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026, at the Capitol in Jackson. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today“The Legislature changes laws every year and amends laws every year and does that,” the Pascagoula lawmaker said. “It’s all legal. So whatever Missisisppi Today’s interpretation is, I defer to lawyers and constitutional scholars.”
He later posted on his Facebook page thanking the advisory council for its work while saying that “stewarding these funds remains the Legislature’s responsibility.”
After reviewing the 2026 opioid settlement bill, Matt Steffey, a constitutional law professor at Mississippi College, said the new proposed language still reads like the advisory council review process is necessary for spending the national lawsuits required to be used for overdose prevention.
He said it’s hard to see how bypassing the council would follow the law’s stated goal “to ensure public involvement, accountability and transparency in allocating and accounting for the monies in the fund.”
MaryAsa Lee, spokesperson for Attorney General and Advisory Council Chair Lynn Fitch, did not respond to an emailed question about Fitch’s thoughts on lawmakers going outside the council applications in their abatement funding decisions.
The state’s Supreme Court has ruled that lawmakers control money the state wins in lawsuits, and Steffey said he didn’t know if someone would have legal standing to challenge these appropriations in court. But he said just because the Legislature may be able to do that doesn’t mean they should.
“It certainly shouldn’t set up a year-long process and then ignore it,” Steffey said. “If the Legislature sets up a process, the citizens should be able to expect the Legislature to then abide it and honor it.”
The 2026 bill requires the advisory council to contract with a consultant to improve the opioid settlement distribution process, which council member James Moore called for last year. Moore has worked to prevent overdoses throughout Mississippi since his son fatally overdosed 11 years ago.
Seeing how the Legislature considered the council’s work, Moore worries whether a consulting group’s work would be treated similarly.
“Would those same legislators have any motivation to accept the recommendations from an out-of-state agency skilled in grant application reviews?” He asked in an email to Mississippi Today.
Tricia Christensen, an independent drug policy consultant in Tennessee, said the Legislature could further shut out Mississippians with the most expertise in how best to prevent more overdoses. Mississippi is one of the few states where there are no opportunities for people without political connections to offer public testimony.
“If the Legislature holds all the power, there will be even less ability for community members and subject matter experts to apply for or help influence how funds are spent,” Christensen said in a text message to Mississippi Today.
Lawmakers in other states have also sought to supersede opioid settlement advisory councils. Regina LaBelle, the country’s former top drug policy official and the director of Georgetown Law’s Center on Addiction and Public Policy, said it could be tempting to soon use legislative power to backfill impending Medicaid funding cuts and other federal health addiction grants.
But the settlement funds are limited, and hundreds of Mississippians continue to overdose every year.
“It’s not forever,” she said. “And it’s not a ton.”
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