This Opioid Settlement Expenditure Report Tracker describes the public availability of expenditures for each of the 51 states’ intrastate-allocated shares (e.g., state, fund, local; 116 total). The map and table below link to every publicly available advisory committee report, spending dashboard, official webpage containing dollar amount discussions of opioid settlement spend I could find and reflect exclusive updates from some of my recent conversations with state and local decision-makers.

The summary table hosts a simplified subset of the information contained in the interactive map. Clicking on any state in the map will pull up a panel that links to all of the other state-specific opioid settlement-related materials on this site, e.g., state-specific Community Guides, state-specific settlement news and opportunity tracking, states’ global settlement tallies.

This resource will be continuously updated by Christine, along with the other datasets OpioidSettlementTracker.com. Methodology is below. If you see something I’ve missed, email Tips@OpioidSettlementTracker.com.

It depends. See each intrastate (state, fund, local, etc.) share:

• Yes. For shares with published expenditure reports, regardless of format or granularity.

• Eventually. For shares with expenditures not yet live but promised as a matter of “when.”

• Not… yet? For shares attached to official statements that speak to public reporting as a matter of “if” (see, e.g., proposed amendments to Virginia’s state share reporting).

• No. For shares entirely unattached to public reporting commitments.

For the rest of my thinking here, see OST’s Expenditure Report Tracker methodology.

A note about affiliations. The Expenditure Report Tracker was independently completed by Christine as a pro bono contribution to her existing opioid settlement tracking portfolio. Christine has independently researched, collected, fact-checked,* produced, coded, and presented the materials published above. No organization paid her to create her Expenditure Report Tracker, and she solely possesses the underlying dataset generating the visualizations on this page.

Goodbye “promises,” hello “expenditures.” By launching the materials on this page, Christine is concluding her 2023 investigation into states’ promises to eventually publicly report their expenditures, which now reflects a “last updated” date of January 31, 2024. The “fruits” of those prior promises are the resources collected and displayed in the Expenditure Report Tracker’s table and map, and all subsequent updates to states’ public reporting plans will be tracked here as well.

The Expenditure Report Tracker is the public-facing interface of an original dataset created by the founder of this website, Christine Minhee, J.D. It hosts the results of Christine’s original investigation, research, and reporting, and will be updated regularly by Christine, who also independently maintains the other datasets here on OpioidSettlementTracker.com.

Sources for the above information. Christine used her own research on states’ opioid settlement spending rules to identify each state’s intrastate allocation share, and her research on states’ public reporting commitments helped her figure out which entity would ultimately be in charge of expenditure reporting for each of the 116 intrastate decision-making slices. She Googled a bunch to find the resources themselves, and emailed interviews with state and local officials* to figure out any remaining blanks.

* Factchecking with state and local officials. Christine has reached out to all known opioid settlement-related leads and contacts for each of the 50+D.C. U.S. states’ opioid settlement-funded remediation efforts. Each state was given an opportunity to respond to an early draft of their entry in the table above. What is published here reflects changes and additions that came about during this collaborative process.

Categorization rules. The Expenditure Report Tracker does not (yet!) report on the quality or granularity of expenditure reporting for each state. It does not seek to categorize or judge the expenditures themselves, but does seek to report on the quantity of reporting: whether and where particular intrastate shares (state, fund/foundation/trust, local, regional, etc.) have decision-maker promulgated expenditures published in publicly accessible format as a matter of “yes,” “eventually,” “not... yet?”, and “no.”

• Yes. This “PUBLIC?” status denotes allocated shares that have with decision-maker-reported expenditures publicly available somewhere on the Internet.

  • What is considered a reported expenditure? The “Yes” net was deliberately cast wide to capture all state, local, or otherwise officially promulgated evidence of spend regardless of reporting format, granularity, or quality. For this stage of my investigation, at least one instance of dollar amount ($) paired with simple description of use would qualify as a “reported expenditure.”

• Eventually. For shares attached to an official statement that describes the publication of opioid remediation expenditures as a matter of certain “when” vs. “if,” prior written commitment or otherwise.

• Not… yet? For shares attached to official materials that encourage or recommend publication of opioid remediation expenditures but do not explicitly require them. Bills or proposed amendments to add reporting requirements would qualify here (see, e.g., Virginia).

• No. For shares unattached to public reporting commitments. 

Recategorization rules. Representatives for each of the reported shares are encouraged to reach out with any suggested edits.

• “No” or “Not... yet?” shares may be changed to “Eventually” with a linkable or quotable statement I can use that describes publication as a “when” vs. “if.” 

• “No,” “Not... yet?”, or “Eventually” shares will be re-tagged as “Yes” post-haste with any links to expenditure reports I might've missed.