NJ gave $45 million in opioid settlement funds to four hospitals. Advocates and the state AG say it goes against recommendations.

New Jersey lawmakers tapped millions of dollars from the state’s settlement funds from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers as part of the budget enacted Monday, allocating the money to four hospitals in a move that incensed some community advocates and the state attorney general.

RWJBarnabas Health, Atlantic Health System, Cooper University Hospital, and Hackensack Medical Center will receive $45 million from a $1 billion settlement fund.

Members of a state committee that met for more than a year to set priorities on how to spend the money say the appropriation comes with few spending parameters and little oversight.

Hospitals can use the funding to provide “necessary care and treatment for victims of opioid-related health issues,” the budget says. RWJBarnabas and Cooper are set to receive $15 million; Hackensack will receive $10 million; and Atlantic will receive $5 million.

Gov. Phil Murphy signed the $58.8 billion budget into law Monday night.

In a statement Tuesday, he said that he shared the advisory committee members’ concerns about “how the budget language will impact” their efforts.

But, Murphy added, “federal actions” are “creating a perilous situation for our state’s hospitals.”

“They can use these funds to deliver effective services,” he said.

He said his administration will track “every dollar” the hospitals receive to make sure the money is used for “new, evidence-based programming” that is in compliance with opioid settlement agreements, which mandate that the funds be used for opioid addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery measures.

Under the settlement agreement with opioid manufacturers, distributors, and others, the state splits the $1 billion in funds evenly with local governments. The money is to be distributed annually through 2038.

Billions in settlement money have been disbursed to communities across the country. Nationwide, how the opioid settlement funds are being spent has spurred scrutiny and, sometimes, controversy, including in Philadelphia.

Members of the committee created to suggest priorities for the distribution of the opioid settlement funds in New Jersey said they sought input from hundreds of community members over 15 months to develop a plan to spend the funds.

They recommended spending the money on harm reduction measures, medication for opioid use disorder, housing, social support for people with addiction, and legal services.

“We found out Saturday morning that $45 million — a tenth of the settlement funds — is being given to four hospitals with no rhyme or reason,” said Jenna Mellor, the director of the New Jersey Harm Reduction Coalition and a member of the advisory committee.

Bre Azañedo, another committee member and the program manager at the Black Lives Matter Paterson Harm Reduction Center, said the committee was not consulted on the hospital appropriations.

Lawmakers should prioritize funding frontline organizations like hers, which already struggle to find funding to provide medical care for people who avoid hospitals because of stigma around addiction, she said.

Murphy said he will soon announce funding for a new round of programs based on the advisory committee’s recommendations.

The state budget move is intended to help people in addiction, said Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald (D., Camden), who appropriated the funds to the hospitals, intending the funds to help them develop a more robust network of primary care.

That will help people with addiction get more consistent primary care, and help prevent addiction among people who have difficulty regularly seeing a doctor because of transportation issues or other barriers, he said.

“Part of the problem with people that linger in addiction is their failure to get access to care and be able to track medication and medication usage,” Greenwald said.

“And we want to get to it before someone is in addiction. The opioid settlement, to me, is an opportunity to help those folks fallen subject to opioid [addiction] — but also to get those folks before they’re addicted.”

In a statement, officials from Cooper University Hospital, the Camden hospital that will receive $15 million under the budget appropriation, said that any state funds provided to the hospital would be used to support “direct patient care” at the Cooper Center for Healing, the hospital’s substance use disorder program.

The center provides inpatient and outpatient care for people with addiction, operates a walk-in addiction treatment clinic, and has a mobile unit that treats people on the street. It also collaborates with a local syringe exchange program to provide low-barrier addiction treatment.

In a statement issued before Murphy signed the budget into law, Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said he was disappointed to see this funding moved into the state budget for hospitals.

He said the state had made “mistakes” spending similar settlements from tobacco companies in the past. Those funds “should have been used exclusively to address damage caused by cigarettes,” he said.

“I take no position on whether the hospitals should receive funds, but these settlement funds are not general revenues for the state,” he said in the statement.

“Spending this money in this way is a slap in the face to every family who lost a loved one in this devastating crisis, which continues to claim the lives of thousands of New Jerseyans each year.”

Platkin said he would be “carefully scrutinizing” the hospital systems that received the money “to make sure every single dollar is spent within the terms of the settlements we fought for years to obtain.”

Greenwald, the legislator who put the opioid money for hospitals in the state budget, said he wants to speak to advocates about the budget addition: “Everyone is welcome to the table to help craft this.”

Though a group of advocates had dropped a banner in the statehouse protesting the budget addition Monday, Greenwald said he was unaware of Platkin’s or activists’ concerns, and was not in the room when the banner was dropped.

Sen. Joe Vitale (D., Middlesex), chairman of the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee, said the opioid settlement provision was added to the budget bill without public notice or debate.

“It undercuts the work of the organizations that are doing this work on the ground, both local, county, and statewide,” he said.

The budget bill passed the Democratic-led legislature largely along party lines. Vitale voted in favor of the budget but said he hoped Murphy would use his line-item veto authority to nix the opioid spending provision. The governor left the appropriation in the budget.

The senator said the $45 million figure matches the amount included in the first year of New Jersey’s settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma — a multistate agreement that was announced just two weeks ago. New Jersey is set to receive $125 million over 15 years through that settlement.

Vitale said he thinks that new windfall influenced state budget negotiations.

“It’s a hell of a coincidence,” Vitale said.