City of Fairmont completes opioid grant distribution process
'The purpose of these grants has always been to address the opioid crisis in our state,' Grant Administrator Rene Graves said in a press release. 'We wanted to make sure we took a thoughtful approach in our dissemination of these funds, so we created this process to get these dollars in the hands of the organizations on the front line.'
The City of Fairmont received an allocation of $466,000 in December 2023. The money came after various pharmaceuticals settled with the State of West Virginia after being accused of allowing an addiction crisis to proliferate throughout the state.
'We want to make sure they're gonna use that money in the correct way to do the right thing,' Graves said in a July 2024 city council meeting. 'If they're supposed to help somebody with substance abuse disorder but really they want to decorate an apartment, we want to make sure they're going to do what they say they're going to do. Because if they don't, then that is not just a misuse of funds. It's misusing the whole point of all of this and it's not going to ultimately help those that need the help.'
Graves and other members of city staff designed the plan according to the statewide Memorandum of Understanding created by the West Virginia First Foundation, which outlines how the money from the settlement should be used.
City officials said in the release that individuals or communities that have been impacted by the opioid epidemic can apply for up to $100,000 in grant funds if they work directly with demographic groups that were impacted by the epidemic and $50,000 if they work indirectly. Grants will require a commitment of $20,000 in matching funds from each applicant. The city is willing to consider waivers on a case by case basis. The city's new Ad Hoc Opioid Fund Review Committee will use a rubric to review and score each application for eligibility.
'It was very important to me, as a member of council, that we not be frivolous with this money,' Councilmember Rebecca Moran said in the release. 'I'd like to thank City Staff for their work in making this as robust of a process as possible. I can't wait to see what these organizations do with these funds.'
City Manager Travis Blosser said in 2024 that the City wanted to ensure there wasn't any misappropriation of opioid funds. To that end, he worked with staffers who devised the program that was announced Monday.
'We very easily could establish a process and just start awarding money,' Blosser said. 'That's not how we functioned with our Facade Improvement Program or other funding strategies. And I think that's important for some of the comments you heard about misappropriation of COVID dollars and other things. We want to make sure those things don't happen because that's harmful. If that happens, that's harmful to us. And that's harmful to everybody in the community.'
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