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The appointment of a full-time project coordinator to manage Hawaii’s opioid settlement trust fund has set the process of allocating money to the counties for drug treatment efforts on a faster track, according to a member of the settlement advisory committee who previously described the pace of spending as “painfully slow.”

The hiring of Grant Giventer at the Department of Health’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division in December improved communication, according to Tim Hansen, a committee member and executive assistant to Hawaii Mayor Mitch Roth.

Giventer “has been much more on top of the monies, and trying to keep the bureaucratic process moving along,” Hansen said.

Giventer oversees Hawaii’s share of settlements reached with the manufacturers and distributors of branded opioid drugs that fueled a rise in fatal overdoses starting in the late 1990s. That settlement fund now stands at $32.7 million after $2.7 million was spent, with several million more to be spent by the end of the year, he said.

The funds are supposed to be directed to opioid treatment and recovery, as well as preventing the over-prescribing and misuse of opioids, according to the memorandum between the state and local governments.

That , however, cedes all the spending power to the state, even at the local level, and that formula has fueled Hansen’s frustration at the small amount of money released so far. Hansen is one of eight state and county representatives on the .

Now he says Hawaii County is expecting $489,000 to arrive within weeks to help establish a detox facility and to fund two years of operation by the Hawaii County Fentanyl Task Force, which has emerged as a statewide model for education, early intervention and treatment.

Hansen is hopeful he’s seeing the basis of “good collaboration among the counties, to try and get ahead of this horrible epidemic.”

Slow-Moving Funds

It’s been over three years since the state was awarded just under $2 million from the first multi-state settlement against four major opioid manufacturers and marketers. There are now 16 different companies and court judgments are continuing.

Hawaii’s settlement trust stands at $32.7 million, with fluctuations, after it doubled over the last month with a $14.2 million infusion of funds.

The exact schedule for the payments to Hawaii is still being developed, Giventer said.

“Every one of the settlement agreements is a little different,” he said. “One defendant agreed to pay more than another, and some put more money on the front end, or more money in the middle, so we have to build the schedule when the bulk of suits have been resolved.”

Hawaii is set to eventually receive a minimum of $82 million, according to reporting by the and . But the total can’t be confirmed by the Attorney General’s Office, spokesperson Toni Schwartz said in an email Friday.

To access court settlements, states are required to adopt broad guidelines for how the proceeds will be spent and by whom, and outline them in a .

In the case of Hawaii, 85% of the money is allocated to the state. But the remaining 15% for the counties still needs to go through the state spending process at the direction of the county, creating the logjams, Hansen said.

Of the $2.7 million disbursed from the fund, the City and County of Honolulu has received $1.35 million, managed by the Honolulu Emergency Services Department.

A breakdown of the spending as of May 15 provided by city spokesman Ian Scheuring listed $738,677 for equipment, $90,000 for training and $80,277 for payroll.

In some mainland jurisdictions, public health advisors have raised concerns over settlement funds being used to pay salaries for existing positions including the wages of police officers, a process . It’s unclear if that could emerge as an issue in Hawaii.

Another $1.2 million from the trust was combined with $1.5 million in separate federal funding to purchase the overdose medication naloxone in 2023 and 2024, the Department of Health said.

The other major spending was the purchase of 25,000 fentanyl test strips, to test for the dangerous component in unregulated drugs, and $21,000 to support a workshop in February by the , now set to receive the half-million dollar boost from the settlement fund.

With that money scheduled to reach the county within weeks, Hansen says he is cautiously optimistic that more of the settlement will make a difference at the local level, despite the constraints of the memorandum. during the recent legislative session also helped advance efforts, he said.

“We’re bound to work within those parameters,” Hansen said, “and I do feel like we’ve got a good working group together and will continue to do what we can within the slow-moving bureaucratic realities.”

Hansen said Giventer flew to Big Island within weeks of taking up his role, and that communication between the DOH and the counties has improved significantly.

Giventer said the department is also committed to of the opioid settlement expenditures and has commissioned a dedicated tracking website that would go live in the fall.

Transparency around the use of opioid settlement funds nationally remains a significant issue and there are no legally enforceable requirements to report how funds are spent.

Civil Beat’s community health coverage is supported by the Cooke Foundation, and Papa Ola Lokahi.