SMART Policy Podcast
Podcast by the UT SMART Initiative. Host Jeremy Kourvelas speaks with experts from across the recovery ecosystem - representing healthcare, prevention, law enforcement and more - about local, state and federal drug policy to find out what is and isn't working to make this fight against addiction a little easier.
SMART Policy Podcast
Maury County's Fiscally Conservative Approach Pays Off
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You're listening to the Smart Policy Podcast, a production of the University of Tennessee's Institute for Public Service. Late last year, the Murray County Commission approved the spending of$920,770 in opioid settlement funding, abating the opioid crisis in their community from multiple angles.
SPEAKER_01We want to have some outreach, we want to have prevention, we want to have treatment, prevent them from ending up in this situation, help the ones that are already in this situation, and then also providing the mental health infrastructure to keep them on the right path.
SPEAKER_00But it's more than just the broad and comprehensive approach that caught our eye at SMART. The formal and transparent procedures of the Murray County Opioid Abatement Committee have made it so that any local resident can follow along and see exactly how these dollars are being allocated.
SPEAKER_01We wanted to make sure that we were doing the right thing for Murray County, not the right thing for ourselves. I also think it protects you as a county and shows, hey, we're being accountable. We are being great stewards of funding.
SPEAKER_00On the show this month is Doug Lukanen, the Murray County Finance Director and Chair of the County's Opioid Abatement Committee, and Brandon Fawn, Financial Administrative Assistant, who was instrumental in creating the documents and procedures of the committee's abatement community grant process. It's clear that the finance office provided some crucial insight, as the guiding principle for the committee has been that though these funds last 18 years, the amounts change significantly over time. And as such, so should the county's plans.
SPEAKER_01This thing's gonna go on for 18 years. We expect it to change, we expect it to alter over time. We started at 432,000 for Murray County in 2023. The 2027 estimate right now that has been put out is 219,833. That's about half. And also in working with Smart, like we we want to bridge the gap, we contacted Marshall County about some cohesive things that we could do to make these dollars go farther.
SPEAKER_00This was an excellent conversation that has a lot of actionable takeaways for county officials. Most of all, the reminder that the allocation deadline for 2023 funding is only one month away. Thank you both for joining me. Murray County stands out for the breadth of strategies funded in this round of uh opioid abatement settlement funding. I was wondering if y'all could uh run through some of the strategies that were funded.
SPEAKER_01We took a very diverse approach in working with Smart through CTAS as well, uh, with Trevor.
SPEAKER_00That would be Smart's middle Tennessee consultant, Trevor Henderson.
SPEAKER_01Um, but mainly we had a very diverse committee that would that we set up. We tried to gather everybody that would make sense, you know, um, working with CTAS on that as well. We presented that to the commission and finally ended up with a really diverse, formalized committee uh and and built a scoring rubric based on things that are required by the law, um, you know, uh things that are recommended for prevention, uh, but also treatment and remediation. So, with that, we wanted to make sure that we were reaching out to the people that needed help the most where they would be to make it easy for them to have these resources. So it was important for us to have contact at our local jail, but also at our local hospitals where folks could be in dealing with addiction or dealing with issues with opioids. Um, so we kind of broke everything down by funding strategy and also by the entity. Uh, some of these are direct funding with uh our county hospital, um, you know, that we we work with very closely. It is a county-owned facility and also with some outsourced nonprofits, such as Delta Recovery in Murray County. With that, treatment of uninsured and underinsured individuals. Uh, we put funding of$98,400 towards that through Delta Recovery. All of our folks uh or our sub-recipients of this funding, they'll be given quarterly reports and updates to our committee so that we know this funding is being spent appropriately. We also funded a program liaison. Um, basically, they will be stationed at those contact points to be able to say, hey, did you know these resources are out there for you? You know, uh, here's where you can go for this. And you know what? We'll help you get there if you need to get there. So we also funded some uh funding for transportation uh through GWP as well. So also we created a harm reduction pantry uh that has community resources as well as fentanyl and xylosine test strips, syringes, uh, opioid antagonist spray and lock boxes. And that's overseen by an employee of Delta Recovery as well, uh, in working with the Murray County Prevention Coalition. And then the last thing, the last bullet point with Delta Recovery is a recovery housing program so that we set aside funding for a hundred individuals uh that may not have adequate housing or in a situation where their housing puts them at risk for diving back into addiction or falling back into a life that they were unable to escape. We are also working on a website project and an app to basically point to these resources. Most everybody has a phone attached to their hand at all times lately. You know, you can't go anywhere without some sort of digital device. And so we want them to have an app that can tie them to those resources. We've started on our website already, MurrayCounty-tn.gov. You navigate to our Murray County Opioid Abatement Committee. Got a page set aside with a bunch of helpful materials, also contact information for the committee members and uh recent developments, uh, as well as when our next application is going to be and the forms that would have to be filled out for application for funding. So um we want to have some outreach, we want to have prevention, we want to have treatment. Brandon, I'll let you go ahead and take it at Murray Regional Medical Center. That's our next point of contact here in the committee.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you, Doug. So Murray Regional, of course, has their representation on the committee. Uh, we wanted to go ahead and focus on two target areas, two initial points of entry into the system, both between the the justice system as well as the healthcare system in our community. In doing so, we've allocated about, uh I want to say it was$360,000, uh, one of which to apply to the uh an FQHC psychiatrist, and then two opioid navigator positions. Those two navigator positions, of course, will be stationed at both points of entry in order to be able to guide those individuals to those resources as needed, uh, in coordination with all the other entities that we have funded in this process. Uh, one of those navigators has been earmarked. We're going to test this process with one navigator for the time being, assess whether or not it is meeting that standard of efficacy that we need before we go ahead and station that second individual and give us time, of course, to assess the job itself and see if we can fix things along the way. From that point on, we've moved on to the aforementioned Murray County Prevention Coalition. We've expanded their personnel, like throwing out$120,000,$700,$120,710, excuse me. And that is essentially more prevention, trying to promote these resources, giving a program coordinator, a harm reduction and youth program coordinator, and of course, some support structure there with a bookkeeper and a media intern in order to promote that, also to most likely help us with monitoring in that respect. Additionally, we have allocated$15,000 to SCHRA, uh, that is for drug screening, that will assist us in our recovery court program through that point. Uh after that, we have Place of Hope that has received$70,000. Uh, that is strictly for support of living, also for counsel and a case manager as well. So those residential treatment services and transitional housing will also support this entire initiative. After that, uh, we have GWP Recovery Ministries. They were the last on the list. Um waiting uh status update with the state of Tennessee. Uh, we've allocated$38,000 there. That is strictly for transportation, gas, vehicle maintenance, and insurance, as well as program needs, you know, in conjunction with the others for housing, utilities, drug test costs, and even some recovery literature here and there for other programs. That is essentially what we have comprehensively in a short, uh, hopefully not too short summary.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I don't know how short it was. Um, but our total allocation,$920,770 in our first uh application process, which is a good chunk. I mean, if you look at the the future, that's about 25% of our money. But we our our approach, I was kind of hesitant to that because that was a lot of investment early. But I I feel like um something that we emphasized with our groups was hey, look for additional funding, you know, look for additional grant funding from the state on these projects. And and our um our sub-recipients are doing that, you know, Delta Recovery is gonna be doing that, prevention coalition, so that this really becomes a long-term uh help for Murray County. And this thing's gonna go on for 18 years, you know, starting. So I've I've budgeted forward expected cost. It's it's not uh locked in on what the state's going to do. Um, looking forward to seeing what the state does do uh beyond 2027. So uh we'll have our eyes on that and adjust our budget as needed. But we want to uh definitely make a solid investment, review this, make sure what we're doing is working, and then uh realign at our next application process that'll be in August of 2025. So some of these programs, as we do quarterly reports, will have updates. But yeah, the the funding strategy was to try to touch all the little things, um, but also have a strong treatment uh process. So the majority of the funding is in treatment and getting them to treatment, and then a good portion of the funding is prevention, you know. So prevent them from from ending up in this situation, help the ones that are already in this situation, and then also providing the mental health uh infrastructure to keep them on the right path.
SPEAKER_00That was an excellent overview. And uh uh yeah, to to cover all aspects of the continuum like that in this uh round of funding, it it's you really don't see it very often. The connection to the diversity of your committee itself, I think, is a really excellent point of this because uh I I mean I see here, Doug, that you chair this. So you again, you are the county finance director, and your vice chairman is the county's general assessment and juvenile court judge. Uh that's an interesting perspective on this. Uh, not not a lot of counties have quite those positions. Yeah, you you do sometimes see judges, you do some uh you do see uh finance directors involved, but you see a lot of sheriffs as chairs. Now y'all do have a sheriff on the committee. Uh you do have the health director, you've got representatives from the local health care system, you've several people from recovery organizations. I see Delta Recovery, uh GWP Recovery Ministries, a number of uh uh uh different aspects of this all connected as well. Of course, I'm not enlisting everybody, and I encourage people to go to your website, which is in the show notes, to see the full list. But that breadth of experience and diversity of opinion, law enforcement, healthcare, prevention, on and on and on has undoubtedly fed into this. There is uh something to be said though about how some of these individuals, their organizations, were also represented in these applications. Uh, can you say a little bit about how that played out in the uh uh application process?
SPEAKER_01Definitely. So we we wanted to be very um objective, you know. Uh we wanted to make sure that we were doing the right thing for Murray County, not the right thing for our ourselves. And and in doing the right thing, you know, we're gonna see results from that. You know, CEO of Murray Regional's on there, Dr. Cheney. Uh he so he brings up and he is a doctor, you know, before he was uh the CEO. And so he he's dealt with this, you know, in his career. Um, we've got folks, you know, like you said, representing the jail and sheriff side of things where it's like we see the addiction, you know, on this side. We by this point, you know, they're in in trouble for something, you know, and we're trying to fix a problem there as well. Right, exactly. And then we see them go through the court process. So we we basically used abstention. We we are on the committee for the right reasons. Um, I think that that that's my role is I don't have a hand in any of these organizations. Administratively, we knew that we, myself and Brandon would be unbiased more than anybody because our our sole goal is to to provide help. We didn't really care where the money went, as long as it went for the good of the citizens that needed it. So, for example, we we did have uh, you know, Matthew White representing Delta Recovery. Yes, that organization uh did receive funding from this. He abstained from the vote. He did not vote on it. Brandon did a great job of creating, as part of the application process, a scoring rubric. And so every committee member privately had to score it based on their program and project description, what the work was going to be like, the timelines of that work, the feasibility of it actually working, give it a grade on its budget, then the demonstration of need, alignment with our committee's goals, uh, which we established early on. Also, out of 10, how are we leveraging community partnerships and funding? Is this a collaborative application that includes Delta Recovery and the Prevention Coalition? Is this something that with two entities are working together towards a common goal, you know, or is this strictly one set of funding for one purpose? Then strategic goals and sustainability, and then a monitoring and evaluation plan. So each board member had to give a score on each of those things. And that's outlined honestly in our guidance, you know, when the funding's originally given. And so for us to, you know, make sure we're abiding by those things, but also being transparent and fair with grading, that's the approach that we took. So our meetings are recorded. We take minutes of the meeting, it's as formal as it can be. You can listen to some of those, and you will hear some people disagreeing. Yeah, you know, you will hear some of uh, you know, like, yeah, I believe in this, but I don't know if I want to fund, you know,$300,000 of this. I I think let's let's diversify, let's do go in this direction. So, you know, held each other accountable. I also think it's good, like you said, a very diversified committee. Our original committee that we formed, it was informal in November of 2023. And uh we started working together through that. And it was just based off of a recommendation from Smart and CTAS. And then we carried it to be formalized. We were able to grab some additional members that the commission recommended uh that are in these recovery nonprofits that would provide advice as well. Added a couple more members, refreshed everybody, and we were really able to hit the ground running, I think, in April of 24 to be funded uh in October and November of 24 and get checks out the door. And also uh in working with Smart, like we we want to bridge the gap. We contacted Marshall County about some cohesive things that we could do to make these dollars go farther, contacted Giles County. Um, and and people are are interested, and we have money left over um for the remainder of this. So I only see this getting better.
SPEAKER_00But I'm really glad you brought up that formal process because that is something else that we noticed uh as being particularly admirable. And uh, of course, the sunshine nature of it all. You said the meetings are recorded, they're public record. That is uh a transparency that is really welcome, especially when it comes to these kinds of settlements that have uh significant political and just public interest. There are all sorts of folks tracking what's happening with these numbers uh across the country. And so that y'all are just doing it in the sunshine is is itself a really excellent.
SPEAKER_02As the clerk of the committee and knowing the long-term scope of this, uh we wanted at least lay the foundation, establish those processes uh in order to be able to uh permit that dialogue and that exchange between each and every one of those members. Um cultivate that expert opinion within our community all in one centralized location, and try to do so in some of these initiatives, particularly so the um the county website project. Uh we'd like to go ahead and compile all those resources in one centralized location in order to broaden that conversation and expand it further. Beyond that, though, the daily minutiae of the committee itself forms, procedures, voting processes, there weren't any until until uh we we got to work on it and found that we needed things that are otherwise trivial in nature you know go a long way in establishing that foundation and just some sort of modicum for them to be able to have that dialogue and discourse for our exchange of ideas, uh, and how best to approach this process.
SPEAKER_01That was the big part of it. Like right now, now that structure is in place, application process is in place, and and we've dumped you know the the work necessary from a good place in our hearts of of why. Now, if Brandon and I something, God forbid happened to us, or uh, or the entire committee gets wiped out, there's a structure. You can go back, you can just copy and paste, look at last month's meeting and uh hit the button, you know, just turn it back on again. And you know, no matter whose names are are on the the committee, that's something that we can be proud of of establishing. And um I Brandon had a huge part in that and keeps me organized. Um, you know, we these are a lot of people with with big ideas, these are a lot of people that that are 40,000 foot view, but also can get into the minutia and and how how things are being done, which is a good transparent, diverse uh group of folks, but guiding people through hey, this is you've got to finish this scoring rubric, you know, it it matters. You know, you've you've got to give you know a score to this. And then and you know, but also give your message in the committee meeting as well.
SPEAKER_00Well, even barring what insurance companies might call an act of God, you said uh correctly that these settlements will go on for 18 years. So at minimum, this process is set up to outlast appointment terms, elected terms. You've built in a resilience to the very real situation of political terms and and uh the what it means to manage a uh source of revenue for two decades. Also, that you were encouraging the leveraging of these funds, the diversification of these revenue streams uh does help to continue that sustainability. Additionally, I also noticed that you've you've said several times in different contexts how there are several mechanisms for evaluation, reporting, and adaptation. That is is really interesting as well. I was wondering if you could say uh anything of note in that regard.
SPEAKER_01Before we ever met with Smart, I was like, all right, let's just tackle this, get get this thing designed, get this thing built, and we'll send it out there. Well, I I said, you know, I should have smart look at this before we're we're done. Uh, and and then Trevor came down and and really helped us out. But we built a Microsoft Forms, you know, here's the requests, uh, you know, here fill answer these questions, do the scoring rubric here. And our application process was a little more loose. It wasn't like a normal grant application you would see. It was more like, hey, we've got this money, you know. Um, if you think you can use it to help out Meridi County, here's here's the contact info. Turn in your requests, um, and we'll take it and we'll look at it and you know, we'll we'll score it and you know, but uh we really needed a little more structure. Smart was very nice when they come down. They said, This is great, this is better than some of the other things we've seen. And I'm just over here like, this is trash. This doesn't look good at all. Uh, because they they showed me kind of a couple of other examples, and I was like, Well, I want to beat those examples. I want to be better than that. My competitive side took over, and and Brandon was probably like, Well, well, Doug, we don't have to compete with everything we do, you know, like we don't, but um, yeah, that that first forms. Document was probably less than our best work. Amanda Schmidt was incredibly helpful as well. She was a contracted service provider that we worked with. She's also with the prevention coalition, but she had experience as well. We worked with her to kind of have her review some of the things we put together as well as with Smart so that we had a full breadth of everything. Honestly, though, Brandon's input of time into the application process, editing it, building it, taking the minutes of the meeting. My hat's off to this guy right here. Um, because he and then he has to deal with me and elected officials and judges, and and you know, everybody wants what they want. And he's just trying to make it happen in an application process. So it's a lot better now.
SPEAKER_02Everything from a simple form all the way up to an appropriation. There's a level of dynamism there. We expect it to change, we expect it to alter over time. I wanted to be able to provide those initial drafts for the application in particular in this in this regard. We had a lot of input, of course, with Amanda, as he mentioned earlier. Uh, we had a number of different revisions. We also had uh a few of our attorneys. Yeah, we had an attorney uh review it through Murray County, uh, through our Murray County attorney, do excuse me, as well as uh the attorney for Murray Regional, I believe. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Excellent.
SPEAKER_02So we've had a number of different inputs, of course, on on both the word choice questions that are answered, the information that is uh included therein. We wanted to be able to provide the public, any applicant with the opportunity to be able to provide a detailed description of their program and outline not only their strategic goals, but also their funding mechanisms, how they're going to monitor and report that and go forward from there. Obviously, uh, you know, it's a very big comprehensive form. It's a report that I would love to edit over time. I'm going to try to streamline it and work on it and perfect it as best I possibly can. But that is just one, it's a microcosm of a much larger process with the committee itself. We knew that the initial appropriation was likely going to be much larger, of course, than other, than probably subsequent appropriations. That's true. Hence the diversified appropriations that you have between all these numbers of entities, these various entities, basically tackling this approach from multiple different facets of different approaches in order to see what best works, what does not, and then move from there. Uh, as far as monitoring, uh that's something that I would like to have more conversation with on the committee uh moving forward, uh, establishing that between a biannual or quarterly process. I would imagine that's you know may not be broadly applied across the board. I uh perhaps depending on the entity that might change between the two, that's more or less for discussion for the committee itself. But I am very curious to see how that goes, uh, how that plays into the forms, the reports that we will have to support it, and uh truly what direction that they themselves, and including you, Doug Chairman, would like to take this forward. So that's my two cents.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the the application that was designed, I mean, you you think about it similar to a job application that you would submit. Um, you don't want it to be so easy that it takes two seconds and and you click it, and then you get just literally anything that you would view and and it's just all over the place. But you also don't want it to be like the hardest test you've ever taken, right? You you don't want to make it to where you know somebody opens it up and they're like, I don't know that this is worth it. You know, but uh to that part, you know, our committee stood strong. If the application came through and it and it was incomplete, or it didn't seem like there was enough attention to detail, um, and it wasn't really letting us know what the request was for, or if it had a massive amount of money attached to it that was not a diverse approach, we kind of looked at those applications, but made decisions on, hey, this is these are the the requests that we're not entertaining at this time, but we would encourage them to apply again in August of 25.
SPEAKER_00Let's call it significant outlayers. Uh it's not that you you banned anybody who who made a bold ask or anything like that. It's just like, hey, um, let's consider the whole pie here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, some something as high as like more money than we would have. Uh you know, like if we're not getting, if we're not gonna get that money, we can't give it to somebody else. Or if the application just did not check all like it was incomplete, you know, it did the application asked for these three things, and those three things weren't in there. Um, so that was something brought up by a committee member that said, hey, we would like to entertain this, just redo your application. We gave an opportunity to do that. We sent it back. One of the I'm not gonna call them out by name or anything, uh, but there was a request that we had that we said, okay, we're extending the deadline on this for you. These are the outstanding items that need to be put in this application for us to take it to committee. Those items never come through. So we encourage them to reapply, said we'll be up, we'll open this thing up again. You know, it'll give you some time to really get your ducks in a row for an application next time.
SPEAKER_00That was very generous. I mean, not not all we'll say, grantors, especially at the governmental level, will be that generous with a good idea. If you don't follow the rules of the application, you don't follow the rules of the application. So that you are paying attention to a good idea and giving extra chances to apply in the future. And that that's uh connected to the realities of your county, it sounds like.
SPEAKER_02Well, we we were actually very pleased to to see the number of submissions that we had. We would love to see more always, of course. Uh I mean we had almost uh what two million there requested uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean that's that's yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so yeah, but almost two million dollars in requested funding. Uh whittling that down, of course, took time down to that 920,770 that you would see.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and that's that's uh I mean I attributed that largely to them.
SPEAKER_01That's and there there was uh one more application that basically uh took all the funding for one use, um, asked them to reapply for for something that doesn't take uh all of the funding, something more doable and diversified.
SPEAKER_00Did you set aside any of the funding uh for future expenditures? I I know some counties took a a percentage and saved it because you are correct to say that these settlements are front loaded, that though it does go on for 18 years, these later year payments are much smaller.
SPEAKER_01We checked our amount on hand, made sure we had uh a total there. As of today, on hand, we had$1,442,000. And and like you said, that's that's part of the front-loaded state payment. You know, honestly, uh$860,000 of that$1.44 is state bound. You know, that's from the state. So um we we keep it in the LGIP interest bearing account for the ones that we can. That's the uh state funding portion of it uh that we're allowed to do that with. And so we we kept it in there. So we so we set aside, I guess that would be about$500,000 of money that we have right now. The projection is that we'll over the life of this, basically 2028 through 2040. I just put an estimate of$100,000 from the state, something conservative because it's not guaranteed, uh, but something that's half of what they would do in 2027 based on the most recent information I have. And then um they do have through 2037 for at least Murray County, an estimation of settlements and subdivision funds. So for 2038 through 2040, I just threw$10,000 in there. We may receive nothing, we may receive$30,000. So um with that,$4.56 million is what we expect to get over 18 years. Uh, we've allocated almost a million. We've got$500,000-ish sitting on the side that we'll be able to allocate. And then also we're gonna we expect to receive our 2025 state funding here in April and uh move forward with some more applications in August.
SPEAKER_00So that's interesting. You you're anticipating an even more precipitous drop-off than what the current payment projections uh show, which is at minimum. We're talking about payments from companies, uh, several of which are in bankruptcy negotiations. Uh and we we have already seen some of the payment uh uh agreements be reduced. Um I think uh Malincron off the top of my head, for example.
SPEAKER_01People are doing large large payments up front, so they don't have to pay this out over the 18 years on the settlement side. And you know, that that's why we received almost 300,000 of it in 2024. And then our estimate for 2025, 105,000, major drop-off. And it's because of those upfronts. The the state funding, you know, 2027, we we started at 432,000 for Murray County in 2023. The 2027 uh estimate right now that that has been put out is 219,833. That's about half. So I'm I'm trying to uh be careful with the future projections. Also, if other counties are listening to this right now, go allocate your funding, go start with these plans, build these things because the state's watching. You know, the state doesn't want to give you this money and watch nothing happen good in Tennessee with it. Um, you definitely got to put these funds to work and watch it happen. And I think that is something that would impact your 2028 through 2040 projections from the state. If we can show plans that are working uh and things that are executed that are going a long way towards helping Tennessee, then I think they would be more apt to fund it. So from a financial perspective, I think if if we start hitting the gas pedal as counties and they can see that in the quarterly report that we file with them, they'll get excited about it. Um, and and we can have results to show for it.
SPEAKER_02Partnerships as well. That I mean that's something that I would very much like to see more of with neighboring counties. We'd like to get a you know more of a comprehensive list uh and reach out to more of those entities in our within our own community that tackle this issue as well and see if we can't get them before the committee at some point with our own request, if not just inclusion on or their input on the website that we intend to compile all this all this information into. Beyond that, of course, that you you mentioned is it recovery fest that you're alluding to? That's correct. That'll be next September. Uh, we intend, I think that's that was actually presented at uh what some time back.
SPEAKER_01It was August committee meeting. I expect to see us probably put uh or be at least asked to put a small amount of funding towards uh Recovery Fest uh to help prevention and community outreach as part of the application process.
SPEAKER_02It was it was certainly positively received within the committee. Of course, we just couldn't do anything about it because the difference in fiscal year.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, it was a timing difference. Um, so I'm gonna piggyback for a uh just a little tidbit off of what Brandon said with other communities. Murray regional, the hospital has an extension. You know, they have locations in other counties and other points that that you know are helping those communities. Marshall County comes to mind. You know, they run their medical center down there. You know, that's another point. Also, some of these smaller counties, they didn't get the size of funding that the larger counties got, right? Correct. So um sometimes they may have an excellent initiative, or we may have an excellent initiative that would help Murray and Marshall or Murray and Giles. And maybe they couldn't get something done because they were short$30,000. Well, we can open it to Marshall and Murray Countyans, we can provide$50,000, cover both areas, and actually get the project done. So sometimes it, you know, they can help with an asset or a resource or a personnel count or or whatever that may be, uh, or supplies, and uh they really can't do it because they don't have enough money. Well, that happens both ways. So we we get the resources, we can chip in a little bit, and we can really help Tennesseans.
SPEAKER_00I that's an excellent strategy to look at sharing a little bit, especially with uh surrounding counties that uh may have less funding. And it's interesting to hear how the route in which that conversation took place was through the regional health system. Uh we've also seen systems where uh county stakeholders used the superseding judicial district that included multiple counties. Uh so there are a number of ways to go about this. That just find your stakeholders that have that cross-county appeal. It would certainly make the conversation easier. Is that what am I intuiting that correctly?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and um, you know, our our method was just you can call them or send them an email and say, hey, right, you know, what what is your opioid committee doing? Uh what what projects do you have that are in the pipeline? Are those things that such and such county would be interested in sharing the cost with, and we can provide some of the benefit to your county uh on? So uh, and that goes both ways, you know, you you get asked, but you also ask others.
SPEAKER_02I mean, at the end of the day, this is a problem that doesn't adhere to county lines.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I by all means expand those partnerships and see if we can't uh lessen the impact.
SPEAKER_01I I grew up in a rural county. I grew up in Marshall County. Uh it's it's you know, it's my my family, my father lives there, and um, in some of those smaller counties, there's a lot less things to do, and and um it ends up well, you know, let's let's go get high is is the answer sometimes. And um, you know, so if there are areas that that need funding or need resources, that's what you're gonna need to do, you know, and uh just believe it or not, like that that's some of where the problem lies. Um finding things for people to do and providing them resources and and and sharing the importance of prevention to help them in the long run is is gonna help.
SPEAKER_00You've said prevention several times, and I think that's a very important role in here, and that you've mentioned the uh significant involvement by your prevention coalition. Now, there are some counties that don't have one. There there are certainly associated partners that can help, nearby prevention coalitions from adjacent counties or the Tennessee National Guard or Prevention Alliance of Tennessee. There are a number of excellent organizations that can help. But how would this have looked different if you were a county with less money and no local prevention coalition? What might you have done in that situation?
SPEAKER_01I feel like this this is an opportunity for either either your local prevention coalition to grow and create a satellite location um with just just a different name that makes it feel more local and and that people are behind it, or uh, you know, share um and invest in that resource so that it can happen together. But uh Brandon, you you looked excited about this. I'm gonna let you let it read.
SPEAKER_02Well, first one, we have the benefit of being off the I-65 corridor. Uh and you know, you have Williamson County to your north. Uh, of course, you know, had we been in the same boat as some of our other surrounding counties, uh I would probably appeal to those as well in order to extrapolate from their resources uh and see if I can't utilize that for any of our own programs in the absence of, say, you know, a number of entities within our county, um, which is something that we've been very fortunate with to have, actually. Yeah, I I'm not entirely sure what I would do in that regard. I'm not an expert in this field, so I'd have to defer that to someone else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're finance.
SPEAKER_02At the end of the day, it's just numbers for us and trying to figure out how to get the best out of it.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Well, okay. So yeah, it sounds like you know, reach out to as many stakeholders as you can, reach out to your neighbors. And uh you said you benefit from being on the I-65 corridor. Every county's connected to another county somehow, uh, that's for sure. So I I think that's good advice. Are there any other considerations you think other Tennessee counties should have based off of y'all's example?
SPEAKER_01I think they really need to rely on some of the resources they have that are free to them. Some folks, uh, I think for political aspirations or whatever, they they just want to be the the face of this. Um, or or they they don't really want to have the knowledge in the room. They want to keep it private and just kind of handle it themselves. Uh, and I I would wager that there are some commissions that don't even know uh about this funding because they haven't been let know about the funding. And they really need to think about reaching out and formalizing the process because it doesn't create transparency. I also think it protects you as a county and shows, hey, we're being accountable. We we are being great stewards of of funding. They they really need to put a priority on it. And uh I think it's wise to have someone from finance on their committee to manage the budgeting and and cash flow of this because um you can get out ahead over your skis very quickly. There's nothing that could would have stopped anybody from spending$4.56 million and then this thing be over, and then we come back next year and all the money's gone, is like, well, that didn't work. Right. You know, it's so uh it's it's good to have a long-term plan and and not throw everything at the wall and just hope it sticks. So uh I think it's wise to have uh somebody administratively working with the committee. A lot of these folks have full-time jobs in addition to being on this committee, or they all in addition to that, they may be on a board and so they're working all the time after work, and all they can do is fill out a rubric and show up and answer. So um, if you get everybody on your committee that's in that situation, there's no one to drive the the motion. There's no one to drive uh momentum and getting things done. If you don't build it, you don't build a rubric, you don't build an application process, you don't record minutes of the meeting so that you can refer back and make sure something was done, then you don't you don't really have much. You got to have somebody like Brandon. Uh you have to have somebody like me, I think, on the committee, as well as the stakeholders that know the best things to do to help Tennesseans on there. So Okay.
SPEAKER_00Well, gentlemen, thank you. Uh always our last question is uh what policy uh changes might you like to consider? This could be at the federal, state, or local level that would make anything related to fighting back against addiction uh more easy. And this could be related to the settlements or it could be related to specifics therein that you happen to have a focus on.
SPEAKER_01To me, this is flexible. I like the ability that I have state and settlement funds. Like if I only had state funds or if I only had settlement funds, then we'd have a different conversation because they have their own rules. To me, anything that that I feel I can't do with it with a state fund, or maybe gray area for a state fund or settlement fund vice versa. We just try to utilize those as best we can to solve the problem. So not really looking, nothing but really bothers me about how it is right now. I would like a more predictive future on funding, though. Me budgeting$100,000 a year from 2028 to 2040 as the state portion of this, that really handcuffs us. If they want to do just a projection that gets us to 2040, and I understand they want to see how it is, but if they're gonna say, hey, we're gonna do this for 18 years, let's just go ahead and establish a schedule of 18 years, include a number for some inflation over that time, and let's call it a day.
SPEAKER_02So uh in terms of policy, I you know, speaking only from our own field, our own domain here, um, I'm I'm actually quite curious, you know, how Dr. Cheney or some of the other members would take that question from their own vantage point. Honestly, though, uh it's it's not something I want to really that I feel particularly qualified to go ahead and weigh in on policy-wise. Uh, do I have my limitations on the nuances of the problem in and of itself or the administration from the state down? Yes, I have my blind spots. A lot of this is is learning on the fly as we go along, trial and error, you know. So being able to throw out a definitive answer for that question is something that I find challenging from this perspective point of view.
SPEAKER_00Honestly, if you say the policy is good for yeah, and again, you are correct to say I'm asking finance guys to talk about policy. Y'all are going to give me a finance policy answer. And I don't know, it's good to hear that such a massive endeavor has flexibility and yet sufficient boundaries. You don't typically hear thoughts like that applied to uh funding streams at the governmental level, you know what I mean? Uh so it sounds it's it's nice to know that we have a very strong state settlement agreement.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I agree. And and and you know, you've got to have compliance. You you you have to have boundaries. You have to it as good as we are locally at at identifying an issue in our little neck of the woods, uh, they're issuing funds for an entire state. And so you can't make it just for Murray County, you can't make it just for Tipton County or any of the other counties. You you have to do something broad and sweeping of some common things that they agree upon.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah. All right. Well, uh, Brandon and Doug, I I uh really appreciate you both. I think you all have brought excellent work to Murray County. I think you represent your uh county very well. It was a pleasure having you on the Smart Policy Podcast. I really appreciate it. Thank you, James.
SPEAKER_01Pleasure. Thank you for your time. Uh thanks for including us and refer you guys to the to our webpage, uh, Murray County Opioida Committee. Uh you can see our meetings, fill out an application in August, come to Recovery Fest. It should be a good time, uh, over at Riverwalk Park in Murray County, September, and be on the lookout for our app and resources here in Murray County. We look forward to helping people.
SPEAKER_00All right, thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_01All right, take it easy.
SPEAKER_00For more episodes on in depth discussions on Tennessee policies related to substance use disorder by a range of local experts. Please subscribe to us wherever you get podcasts and visit our website at smart.tenessee.edu. I'm Jeremy Corvellis. Thank you for listening and see you next month.