By ED RUNYAN

Staff writer

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners will get about $7.4 million of opioid settlement funds from the OneOhio Recovery Foundation over about 15 years, and they recently learned more about the ways they can use it.

Duane Piccirilli, executive director of the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board, spoke to the commissioners Wednesday to discuss the types of allowable projects they can fund.

The commissioners have allocated $300,000 of the $1.7 million they already received, but they will receive varying amounts per year over the next 13 years totaling about $5.7 million more, according to a chart produced by Jen Pangio, the commissioner’s director of management and budget.

OneOhio is charged with managing Ohio’s share of the multi-billion dollar settlements reached with the pharmaceutical industry over its role in the opioid epidemic. OneOhio will make more than $51 million available across the state this year, OneOhio announced in December.

Region 7, comprising Mahoning and Trumbull counties, is eligible for more than $2.8 million, which will help fund substance abuse prevention, treatment and recovery projects.

In addition to the amount to be distributed to the Mahoning County commissioners, “Every municipality, every township, every little village in every county, they get (opioid settlement) money every year for the next 13 years,” Piccirilli said.

There are regulations that determine how the commissioners can allocate the funds, Piccirilli said, adding that Mahoning County Administrator Audrey Tillis and other office staff have done a “good job” during the first year or so of managing the first allocation of the funds.

The biggest allocation was $200,000 for training through the Mahoning County Fire Chiefs Association. But the county also allocated $100,000 to Meridian Healthcare for renovations to one of its detoxification facilities.

“That is really helping the community,” Piccirilli said. “The whole goal is to save lives, so treatment is right in there and recovery.” Two other $10,000 allocations went to Mahoning County Public Health, according to the chart.

Piccirilli said the way the process has worked so far is that requests have come to the commissioners office, which forwarded them to Piccirilli and his staff. They “make sure it meets the law, and then I have the prosecutors back me up. We make sure it meets the abatement strategy. And if it does, then I say ‘this meets the rules, do whatever you want and you grant it.'”

Piccirilli said he recommends that as the process continues, organizations continue to request funds through the commissioners office and follow the same process.

Region 7, which is headed by April Caraway, executive director of the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board, allocated $1,709,855 to 12 entities in OneOhio Region 7, including more than $400,000 to Mercy Health-Youngstown. Two other organizations received grants of more than $200,000, and several other entities received grants of more than $100,000.

The Mercy Health-Youngstown program will fund expansion of the “peers” program in Mercy Health emergency rooms and hospitals to try to get people into (recovery) programs, said Brenda Heidinger, associate director of the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board and OneOhio Region 7 committee chairperson.

Piccirilli, who is a representative on the OneOhio state board, told the commissioners Wednesday there were “a lot more requests” for funding for the Region 7 opioid funds “that were not funded, and I can provide them to your staff” so they can be considered by the commissioners, Piccirilli said.

Additionally, Region 7 is focusing its allocations on “prevention and recovery services,” but that still leaves treatment and other requests I could turn over to you,” Piccirilli said.

“What would be the best fit for our opiate money?” Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti asked Piccirilli.

Piccirilli said first responders are a group that could be funded, like the allocation that they made to the fire chiefs association.

Commissioner Anthony Traficanti asked about detox, and Piccirilli said that is allowable, as is recovery housing.

Piccirilli also talked about the services provided to inmates at the Mahoning County jail, calling the jail “the largest provider of mental health and substance abuse treatment in the county. We’re not proud of it, but it’s the truth. Once you go into jail, you lose your medical card, so all of the treatment in the jail, the sheriff has to pay for.”

He said Gov. Mike DeWine is looking through the state “budgeting process” at the issue of continuing to allow jail inmates to get government medical care while in jail but does not know if any changes will occur.

Piccirilli said the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office “spends hundreds of thousands of dollars providing addiction treatment to people in jail because you’ve got to do it.”

When Rimedio Righetti asked how it would work to allocate opioid money to the sheriff’s office, Piccirilli said, “If you gave the sheriff an allocation, he could pay that toward his (addiction services) provider,” Piccirilli said.

Righetti said because of the amount of drug and alcohol abuse among inmates, she thinks that would be a good use of the funds coming to the county commissioners.

Piccirilli said most inmates had medical cards before they went into jail, but “the moment they go in, their medical card stops,” and the cost is borne by the sheriff’s office.

The mental health and recovery board does have a program whereby the agency helps inmates get back on their medical card about 30 days before they leave the jail “so they don’t have it lapse,” Piccirilli noted.