A new bill in the Mississippi Legislature aims to prevent members of the state’s Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council from using their influence to recommend funding for organizations they’re affiliated with, a pattern recovery advocates condemned last fall.
The Legislature created the council last spring to oversee close to $300 million of money Mississippi won from drug companies that contributed to the opioid epidemic. Over the next eight months, the council was appointed, created an application for grants that would address addiction, reviewed submissions and recommended which proposals the Legislature should fund.
Many of the council’s 37 members hold high-ranking positions with organizations that applied for opioid settlement money. After the small groups of council members reviewed the 127 applications for the first time, Mississippi Today found that over $94 million of the roughly $142 million requested from the highest ranked applications came from organizations with a representative on the council.
The committee adjusted those recommendations after the initial meeting, but some council members openly lobbied for applications they were associated with at later meetings. Some of those efforts helped the council members’ applications move up in the rankings.
The newly proposed legislation would prohibit council members from indirectly or directly influencing financial decisions — including the discussion and ranking of proposals — for applications they’re associated with. It goes beyond the current council conflict of interest rules, which simply instructs members to not vote on those grants.
Sen. Joseph Mike Seymour Credit: Courtesy of the Mississippi LegislatureSen. Mike Seymour, the Republican Ethics Committee chair from Vancleave and lead author of the bill, said reports of the council’s conflicts of interest last fall brought this issue to his attention.
“If we’re all there, and we’re all going to ask for grant money and we’re all appointees, it gives a bad light,” he said.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch, the council’s chair, did not respond to an email asking about her thoughts on the bill. When Mississippi Today asked her about council conflicts of interest last fall, her office cited the existing ethics rules in place and said it would disadvantage the state to prohibit council members from applying for opioid settlement money.
James Moore, a Hattiesburg recovery advocate and opioid settlement council member, leads an organization that applied for funds last year. He chose not to lobby for his application, and it wasn’t highly recommended by the council to be funded.
Moore said he wants some clarification about how the bill would change interactions between the council and grant applicants. But overall, he supports the bill.
“I don’t know how anyone could oppose that,” he said.
Greg Spore, another council member and lawyer for the Office of State Public Defender, said he wishes a provision like this was in place during the 2025 opioid settlement grant evaluation period. He said it’s discouraging that it takes a legislative bill to prevent potential conflicts of interest.
“The council should not have to be reminded to do the right thing,” he said in a text message to Mississippi Today.
The bill is referred to the Senate Judiciary, Division A committee.
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