Public Safety & Criminal Justice Reform Committee - Regular Meeting

And next to the other arm. Yeah. It has to be open because it's broke. Oh, here it is. The door is broke.

It will be clicking the entire It should be at the top. I just sent it. Yes. So the

top screen. Yep. Scott.

And Scott.

Yeah.

Y'all ready? President Hartman, how are you? Didn't see you coming.

Oh, okay.

I'm good. Yeah. How are you?

Alright. Perfect. Thank you. Thank

you for being here. We will start the Toledo City Council, Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee meeting. Clerk, would you please call those attendants?

Hobbs. Here. Williams. Here. Hartman. Here. McPherson. Here. Morris. Here. Sorontu. Five present.

I want to say I'm thankful for president Hartman being here today. She's very busy class. She was able to make it into my coat, my chair, being here, councilwoman, Williams. This is extremely important to myself, councilwoman Williams, our president, councilwoman Morris, councilwoman McPherson. We see a lot of things happening in our community, a lot of mental health, drugs, this type of thing.

And so that our, this, opportunity has happened, we thought it would be good to be able to talk about, some of our organizations that work in our community and how this is going to affect, our citizens. And, so we have, today as our speakers, we're gonna have another meeting and have those that didn't get to speak today speak at our next meeting. But Matt Bell, who is the CEO of Team Recovery Ohio, Scott Silek, who is executive director of mental health and recovery service board of Lucas County. And I hope I'm saying this right, Kara Wall, who is a partner at Zoll and Kranz. Also in attendance, we have center of hope.

I think doctor Tracy Pearman, Harbor chief coordinator, officer Phil Atkins, Lucas County Children's Services executive director, mister Randall Muth, who we had a great meeting last week, and Udison president and CEO, Jeff Delay. So I'm going to ask, if our speakers for today, mister Matt Bell, mister Scott Silek, and Cara miss Cara Wall would come at this time and sit in the pit, and they can choose how they want to speak. And then from there, at the end, we will have an opportunity for questions that you may wanna ask them. And I I really just believe this is so important for our community and our community partners. I know I grew up in the central city Toledo as did councilwoman Williams.

And just in seeing so much, this is very important to me. And so I'm gonna allow councilwoman Williams to have words. And then from there, we will start with and, of course, I wanna say before we start, mister Matt Bell is a graduate of Toledo Saint Francis, the greatest high school in the state of Ohio. I wanna say that.

Thank you so much. I won't hold that against you, Matt. We have a playful banter. I say Scott High School is the best high school in the city, and he says Saint Francis is. Where is all boys?

So whatever. But anyway, this has been a topic that we have discussed for months now, having our own personal experiences with mental health and drug addiction and working in the school systems and just trying to navigate the waters of so many different aspects to this life, this day and age. So I'm grateful that councilman Hobbs and all of council actually takes this topic serious when we talk about crime, mental health, drug addiction, mental health. It's very important. I am a child of a drug a recovering drug addict.

She was a drug addict for twenty three years of my life, and I'm 45 years young. So that should tell you how long I've dealt with being a child of a drug addict. It causes a lot of traumas that still show up in my life today. So this topic is near and dear to my heart and my family. I have several family members that are dealing with mental health and in crisis and drug abuse.

So thank you so much for being here and being willing to come together because us as a council know that this is a problem within our city. It's within our country, but we have to look at the micro, and that's our city. So whatever we can do on this day is we definitely wanna make sure that we do it and want everyone to know that this is so important to us, to try to figure out how we can help. Thank you so much. Thank you, councilman Hobbs.

Mister Matt Bell, you wanna start us today?

If if if I may, if I can just Yes, Thank you very much. Good afternoon, chairman Hobbs and, vice chair Williams, members of the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee. My name is Steve Spitler. I'm a senior attorney with the Department of Law General Division. I'm here to just give a really brief overview and introduce our esteemed guests.

Chairman Hobbs has already done that, so I won't necessarily have to go through the names and titles. But our esteemed guests today will provide an update on the opioid settlement funds through the One Ohio Foundation, collaborative efforts that have been ongoing since the time the city of Toledo signed the One Ohio Memorandum of Understanding. Following guidance from the Ohio Auditor of State and the Attorney General, the City of Toledo Finance Department brought forth legislation previously to establish a fund to receive these opioid settlement funds back in 2022. These these settlement funds paid by various defendants to date are set to be distributed over the course of the next eighteen years. The first disbursement for the city took place in late twenty twenty two.

The MOU calls for direct allocation of 30% to local governments such as the city of Toledo, 55% going to the statewide One Ohio Recovery Foundation through which local governments and organizations may apply for funds to address issues related to the opioid crisis, and the remaining 15% to the state of Ohio. The funds are allocated by region. And our guest will speak to how region four, which is Lucas County, is seeking is seeing the allocation of the fund of the foundation's 55% share. So with that as background, as I said, chairman Hobbs already introduced our our guests. So the last bit of information rather than repeat all of that, the last bit of information information before I hand it over, the city received one disbursement in 2022, as I said, five disbursements in 2023, and 14 disbursements in 2024.

The total balance of the opioid settlement funds with the city is currently $11,279,000 and change with no expenditures to date. But it is the intention of the city to put forth legislation in the likely in the next legislative cycle to expend a portion of these funds for equipment used for expanded treatment by the Toledo fire department, including laryngoscopes, ventilators, and associated medical inventory necessary for continued use of these, like, high-tech equipment to expand treatment of opioid and substance abuse for first responders. Without further ado, and before I step on any more of their lines, I'd welcome our guests to talk about the work being done within the region and or answer any questions the members of this committee may have about the process. Attorney Kara Wall will take it from here.

Good afternoon and thank you for allowing me to

speak with you.

There we go. Now you can hear me. Sorry. Couldn't That's alright. Good afternoon and thank you for letting me come and and speak with you a little bit.

Before we get into how the money is currently being spent in the region, I'm actually gonna give you a little bit of background to understand the two separate pools of money that are available to the city. Because understanding the distinction between the two is not necessarily an easy process, but it's key to maximizing the use of the available resources coming out of these settlements. So I'm sitting here today because my firm has represented a number of counties and municipalities in the ongoing opioid litigation, including Lucas County. County. And as part of that process, my firm was one of the small number of lawyers that actually negotiated the One Ohio Memorandum of Understanding.

There's about 13 signatories to that document. My law partner, Michelle Kranz, who's the past president for the Ohio State Bar Association right now, is one of those signatories. So with that, it means I'm not just able to read the text on the page, but I can tell you what was the intention behind some of the specificity in that document. So without getting into the whole history of the litigation, just know it's important that it is still ongoing, much diminished now from what it had been several years ago. It is it is based in Cleveland in the Northern District of Ohio Federal Court.

And there are dozens of defendants in that litigation that represent various parties in the opioid supply chain from the manufacturers to the distributors, the retail distributors such as pharmacies, and then some of the other parties involved, some third party administrators, benefits managers, things like that. You've probably seen in the news the various settlements that have happened with counties that have been set for trial. The money that actually is relevant to our discussion is coming out of the settlement with some of those major defendants in the case. So as mister Spitler has described, there have been a number of disbursements to the city, and that's coming out of one of those two available pots of money. So I'm gonna talk first about the settlements in general before getting into how that money is allocated into those two available pots.

So as we said, there have been a number of settlements. There's also bankruptcies. The Purdue bankruptcy is a big one in the news. And that we're actually seeing some movement as of this morning. I saw a news breaking that we might be close to having a deal there.

But there's also been other bankruptcies from a manufacturer called Mallinckrodt and another one called and Rite Aid has actually filed for bankruptcy. And so part of that process is also making funds available through the bankruptcy to the municipalities as unsecured creditors. Creditors. So the amount is obviously going to be a portion of what would be in a regular settlement, but that still is some funds. And there should have been the Mallinckrodt bankruptcy has been making disbursements as of I think beginning last year.

So that's where the money is coming from. The timeframe for each of the individual settlements varies. As Mr. Spitler described, eighteen years is the longest period and the shortest period six years. Essentially, there are separate settlements, some individual, and there is one aggregate settlement.

And they each have their own terms. They each have their own length in which they pay out, and they have their own amount of money that comes into it. The language varies as to some of the specifics of the terms, different noneconomic settlements that are part of it, but they follow the same general pattern of adopting the abatement strategies that are the approved uses of these funds and incorporating the state allocation plans. That means the One Ohio MOU has been incorporated into each of these settlement agreements, and that dictates what the how the funds are broken up and also the way in which some of the different processing happens. I will say in Ohio, we are fortunate under the One Ohio allocation.

The 15% to the state, 55% to the foundation, and 30% to local governments is the most advantageous to local governments and foundations of all of the settlements that I've been privy to the information. The default at the MDL, which is the consolidated action, is essentially flipped to the the other direction. In a lot of instances, the states are receiving more of the funds than the local governments. We have that advantage because the MOU was negotiated before money was on the table. So all of the parties involved, the local governments and the state, were much more willing and able to talk in broad strokes and not fixate on individual dollars because there were no dollars yet.

So that's why we're able to have the 30% is a very generous allocation. It's typically 15 in the other states. Now what that means overall is there's over $46,000,000,000 that have been settled nationwide through these settlements to this point. There are still settlements that can potentially happen, but the number of defendants are waning. And there has been a recent Supreme Court decision that is likely to affect whether there's further settlements down the road.

That is gave an advantage to the defendants in the case rather than the plaintiffs. So that again, that 46,000,000,000 has been split up among the different settlements. The one aggregate settlement is the one that's paying out the longest and is for the most money. That is with the distributors of the opioids. The primary distributors, that is. That's Cardinal Health, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen. So that settlement was for $21,000,000,000 over eighteen years. Ohio had a leg up there as well. We actually settled slightly earlier than the rest of the country. So 29,000,000 of that is allocated specifically to the state of Ohio because we kind of were ahead of the game and were able to get that settled before anyone else.

And a lot of that came from the advantage of the litigation, being the seat of it and having many of the plaintiffs set for trial. Again, the next settlements are and I'll go quickly through these. I'm happy to answer any questions about particulars, but I won't bog us down too much. The next settlement was Janssen, which is a Johnson and Johnson subsidiary. That was $5,000,000,000 for nine years, settled in 2021.

In 2022, there were five settlements. Teva, which is a generic manufacturer for $3,340,000,000 over thirteen years with also an option of supplying either Narcan or additional cash over the time period. Allergan, another generic manufacturer for $2,920,000,000 over seven years. CVS settled for $4,900,000,000 over ten years. Walmart for $2,740,000,000 over six years.

And Walgreens for 5,520,000,000.00 fifteen years. So as you can see the and then one last was Kroger, formally announced this year but tentatively was reached last year. I guess it's '25. So '23 and '24 actually for 1,200,000,000.0. So because of those differing time frames and times we've entered into those settlements, there is no steady uniform allocation every year for the next eighteen years or thirteen years.

It's going to vary, particularly as new if there's new settlements coming in. So it does lend itself to some budgeting challenges. That's just something I like to make everyone aware of because they settlements will come in and out essentially as to their terms. Each settlement agreement does have specific dates in which the defendants must pay, And then the settlement administrator who is a third party handles the actual distribution to the municipalities, the states, and attorneys fees as well. So that is where all of the money is coming from that gets split up into that fifteen, fifty five, and 30% allocations.

The local government share, that 30%, is different. So while all the funds, regardless of the endpoint, have to be spent according to the abatement strategies. And that's when I'll explain that in a moment, but you do have a copy of those strategies in in the handout in front of you. The local government share is special in that it is the only allocation that can be spent used for past expenditures. So it can be used retroactively.

Everything else in in the settlements as part of One Ohio has to be for prospective expenditures. So the as mister Spitler relayed, the 1,279,000.000 currently being held by the city, as long as those are all from the local government share could be spent for past expenditures or proactively for future expenditures. The requirement only being that a resolution accompany the allocation to describe which abatement strategy is being fulfilled by that expenditure or why that money in the past was used in some way that your reimbursing was used in an abatement strategy. So you have more flexibility. It's not carte blanche, but it is at least the ability to kind of go back and fill some of those coffers that were depleted necessarily as the epidemic was at its height and when we're kind of taking money from different areas of the budget.

So it's really important to know that the resolution is there. As Mr. Spitler said, the city has done what the auditor requires or recommends, excuse me, and it is special funds, not general funds money that the settlement money is coming into. Now the way it works is there's not an amount that is written into the settlement agreement saying this is the dollar amount each and every municipality is going to get. And One Ohio instead has put a percentage that every time money comes into One Ohio, the 30% is split up by to each individual local government according to a set percentage.

So essentially, there is a One Ohio percentage for the city that anytime money comes into the local government share at the state level, Toledo's share is 1.0198%. So that means any it's 1.0198% of the 30% of money that comes in to Ohio's share. So there's lots of math involved as you kind of go through the levels. It's not fun math either. But that is so anytime any new settlement comes in, that money is allocated.

And it is allocated that way for each disbursement that comes through. So there's only estimates as to what the all up all in is for each individual local government. Instead, each year essentially the settlement administrator sets those numbers because they do flip. So before I move on, I'll please feel free to interrupt me, of course, with any questions as we go through this. And also tell me to slow down if you want because I talk fast.

There's a lot to cover. So that is how the 30% is shared. And I wanted to make sure I spent some time with that so you had a clear understanding of what is the city's funds regardless of what the foundation is doing. There is no grant application necessary. It is, as mister Spitler said, just a matter of appropriate legislation to spend those funds.

And, again, we think there there's still we're still waiting for the first disbursement of Kroger, and then we will be in a cycle where all of the current settlements are paying out yearly. And there are yearly payments for each of those settlements. Again, for whichever the term of their individuals are. So that is the local government share, the 30%. The foundation share, as I mentioned, is for prospective funding only and that is through a grant system. I won't get too far into the details of that. I'll leave that to Mr. Bell as our chair of our local regions board. But I wanted to give a little bit of infrastructure information about how it's split up. So the foundation is provided for in the memorandum of understanding.

There are broad strokes as to how it is to be arranged, including the fact that it is to be a grant system to get those funds, that the state is broken into 19 regions, and the regions vary by size. We have some kind of combination regions and some that are called metros. We are in one of those metros. Lucas County is its own region. So Lucas County and the city and all of the entities within Lucas County comprise Region 4.

And with that representation, we have a representative to the state level board, and that's mister Silek. He he is our rep out there. And each of the regions has a board seat, and there's also some seats allocated to the state that are chosen different levels by the governor AG's office. You'll see it detailed in the MOU. And you do have a copy of the MOU in front of you so that the first, I believe, 11 pages or so are the actual memorandum of understanding.

And you'll see we don't get into the nitty gritty as to how these boards and the foundation work, but broad strokes to really as is appropriate in MOU to just set the stage. And then the foundation and the regions are to implement their own individual bylaws for how they'll operate. The following pages you'll see behind that are the abatement strategies. And the abatement strategies are important because that is essentially the book of how the money can be spent. Those strategies were initially developed as part of the MDL by a panel of experts.

Folks who cover various aspects of the opioid epidemic from treatment to prevention all the way to the financial side and law enforcement. Everything was kind of covered in that panel. So you'll approximately nine pages of strategies, and it's written relatively broadly. So the intention with those abatement strategies was to provide a hook for evidence based strategies to help reduce or abate the effects of the opioid epidemic. It is not a detailed you're not going to be able to say, Oh, this is exactly, you know, what we're going to do because it details in fine bullet points programming.

Instead, it's more of a high level description. Every program is going to be analyzed on an individual basis. It's going to be heavily fact driven by whatever programming any entity is thinking about putting on. But as long as there is a nexus to the opioid epidemic, you can usually find an abatement strategy that would fit for it. But I do recommend being very familiar with that document because that is what's going to dictate the broad categories.

One of my colleagues up here can talk a little bit more about how that grant process works for pointing to which section that works to for the grants. But again, it controls controls both both the the grants and the local government share itself. So you have that there and I'm happy to ask answer any questions about the structure of that. Now within the regions, as I said, there's 19 regional boards. The MOU calls for, as it was getting set up, kind of an equitable participation by all entities within a region.

So that, for instance, the counties wouldn't just call all the shots within any given region, or it wouldn't be allocated to one single power. So the way that it started with our region was the county, the city, the suburban municipalities, and the township all had the opportunity to point board members for the initial population of the board. There are there were three spots for the county, two for the city, one for the suburban municipalities, and one for the township. There has been some modification and addition of members as the board is continuing on. It's a couple years old now.

But essentially, the way it works is when there are vacancies in those positions, the original appointing entity has sixty days in which they have exclusive jurisdiction and authority to fill that vacancy. So once there's a vacancy in say one of the city's positions, the city alone can fill that for sixty days. After sixty days, the board then also has authority to fill the spot in order to maintain business and keep things moving. So I wanted to make sure I cover that. And again, mister Bell can talk about the the specifics of how the operations are now. So that's kind of the background I wanted to make sure we had going into the conversation. I'll pause before I pass on to Matt if there's any immediate questions I can answer. Okay.

Councilman no. That's not councilman Haas. President Hartman.

I just have I'm just curious if you have attachment c and d on you. I'm just curious to see the map and who else is

in our region. I don't have it on me, but I'm happy to provide a copy electronically. The rest of the attachments were relatively voluminous.

I no. I understand. I'm just and I'm purely just nosy. I wanna see

the other regions, but thank you. We'll make sure I get we get that to you.

I wanted to also thank you, president Hartman. I wanted to see the map as well. And and and so the portion that you were just talking about, just before you got into the abatements, you were talking about retroactive. The is that 30% retroactive? Or what percentage of that was I'm sorry. I got lost in the numbers right there. I was trying to keep up. Forgive me.

No. Thank you for the question, chairman Hobbs. It is 30% is the retroactive portion. So 30% of the total money coming into Ohio is the local government share, and that is the retroactive piece that can be spent for past expenditures.

How far is that going back? Five years? Ten years? Like how far is

it going? It just it has to be tied to the opioid epidemic. For purposes of the litigation, we had generally been using approximately 2008 as the start date. It's not hard and fast because we know obviously there were use issues far before that. But relatively speaking, the evidence that was used in the litigation was going back 2008. So as long as you can describe the tie and be able to find that connection, there's no explicit cutoff point for the dates.

Was there an amount that went to the county alone as well? Yes. Yes. How much was the county?

I don't have that number in front of me. Okay. And but the so the county got its own amount. Even each of the townships and villages and cities within Lucas County got their own amounts as well. Every local government entity within the state had a has their One Ohio allocation.

Now the only the entities that are too small where their allocation is less than $500 reverts to the counties. But other than and so those are very small municipalities where that occurred or ones that are less affected. The percent that is allocated, so the 1.0198% for the city, that is based on the actual effects of the epidemic on the city. So it was calculated by a model again created by those experts based on the amount of opioids that were passing through the city, based on the number of opioid related deaths that can be attributed, as well as those with opioid use disorder diagnoses. So it's not popular it's you can see a correlation with the population, but it's not directly derived from population.

So that's where the city's amount and the county's amount is separate. And the county's amount is kind of amalgamation, but also taking into account those individual expenditures.

You said that when the state has its rules and but once it comes to the local municipalities, they don't have rules as to how it if I understood you correctly.

Sorry. Thank you, Chairman. It's actually the only rules are those abatement strategies. So that that 30% or I should say that Toledo's portion of that 30% that comes directly to the coffers for the city, They just have to be tied to one of those abatement strategies and then following the auditor's processes with legislation and and the funds. So as long as it can tie to one of those something on one of those nine pages, whether it's retroactive or prospective, it can be used. Alright.

Before we move to mister Bell, I wanna thank our deputy mayor, Karen Poor, for being here. I wanna thank our city law director, mister Dale Imps, for being here. And I also wanna thank our chief, Allison Armstrong, for being here. Thank you for being here today. Mister Bell, thank you so much, miss Clark. Thank you.

Thank you all for having all of us and and myself as well. My name is Matt Bell. I'm the CEO and founder of Team Recovery. This will be a lot simpler. I will not be spitting out as much numbers, I can assure you of that. Toledo native, as you mentioned, Saint Francis and University of Toledo. I'm a licensed social worker. I'll have my master's degree from UT in a couple months here. And I'm the board chair for Region four, the One Ohio Foundation. I'm also a person in recovery of nearly ten years clean and sober.

So it means a lot to me personally and professionally to serve on this board, and it has been serving. I'll sort of just go into the board structure, how I was chosen, funding priorities that our board has chosen, and then really pass it on to Mr. Silak, if there's no questions. So there's nine members as as we sit today or nine positions, I should say, as we sit today. Mr. Sialak is our director and and our liaison between our board and the state, so to speak. There's three county seats. One is vacant. We have Linda Howe from Maumee Probation, and then we have Janetta McCullough, retired from task. There are two city seats. Again, I was I was chosen as one of

the city seats and

was elected by our board to be the board chair. And Leah Hudson from Toledo Public Schools is also a city appointee. Between our suburban municipality and township seats, one is vacant, and then we have chief Matt Holmick from Monclova Fire and Rescue. And we have we elected two at large members in our first year of really developing our our strategy and and really our funding priorities and and training with the grant software. It was a very heavy lift in our first year.

And simple things like meeting quorum were difficult at times. And so we implemented two at large positions. The individuals that serve on those at large seats are Ron Wells from the commissioner's office and then Ursula Barrero Richards from TARTA. So that really is our board. We were presented with options from the One Ohio Foundation, from the state, with a menu of funding priorities that were recommended to all regions.

And we really looked at that as a board and said through diligence and looking at data and what is needed in our region, which ones do we want to choose as our funding priorities. We had options of whether we wanted to choose funding priorities or not. We could have chosen all 20 or whatever number that they gave to us or we could have chosen one. As a board, we decided to choose four. And so those funding priorities within Region recovery supports, prevention, services for impacted families and children, and criminal justice.

Impacted families and children, and criminal justice. Within those funding priorities, there was options for our region region to to choose choose ceilings ceilings on on how much we wanted to allocate towards each funding priority. We chose as a region that we did not want to get that detailed with it, and we wanted to see, you know, where the grants came in and where we were going to allocate dollars towards. All of the members were trained in a grant software that all regions are using called Akoya Go. It is a software that all regions are using and very labor intensive process of becoming trained in that software.

But program. Have lot the then do with funding priorities, our then region, you know, awards those funds. And so aside from that, it's a the first year was very labor intensive. We were meeting on a monthly basis. We've changed our our meeting schedule.

We've changed from in person to virtual. And and that leads me to my last point, unless there's questions. The One Ohio Foundation website is is is a there's a lot of really good information there. Our meeting minutes are there. Every meeting that we've had, our meeting schedule for 2025 is there. The virtual link and password is there. If anybody wants to to join, if it is an executive session meeting, that would be a closed session, and guests would have to not be included in that meeting. But our directory, our our our region board list is listed in there as well. The state does control that website. The foundation at a state level does control it.

So if there's updates or things that need to be made that's not done on our level, we pass that information on to the state. And sometimes there's a lag to get that updated. But there are there's a tab at the top of that website that says sign up for updates. And that update really tells anybody when something happens within the One Ohio Foundation whether it's dollars are allocated, grants are awarded, if window to apply to register, I should say because there is a window of registration to apply. You have to register before you actually apply.

And if you miss that registration window, then the application cannot take place. So that's good information for anybody. So it's broken down for anybody out there that wants to apply, but there's information on our region on there as well. If there's no questions from anybody, I will pass it over to mister Scott mister Silek.

Councilwoman Williams.

Thank you, chair Hobbs. Thank you guys so far. I just have a question, and this may go to Scott. Just with the applications that come in, and when they're awarded, what is the follow-up? What is the what is the I can't think of it. What's the goal? How do you follow the grant? How do you go who's checking that? Is it you guys, or is it you, Scott?

No, it's not me. Thank you for having me as well. I'm just going fill in some of the blanks. I'll answer your question as well. First you should know that I am not speaking on behalf of the One Ohio Foundation. I am a board member but I'm not authorized. We have paid staff that'll do that. And I recommend that you if you are so inclined to invite them to come to present. They will come up from Columbus and they will give you the full show of what they are able to do. There are One Ohio Foundation staff that are responsible to assure the accountability.

What that looks like was initially focused on the front end of assuring that you know individuals that were applying had the appropriate credentials to receive the money. You know incorporated, you know if they're claiming to provide treatment services, they were licensed. You know, things like that that you would do your due diligence with. As far as ongoing, there's a contract that is established between the One Ohio Foundation and the entities. And within that contract then spells out the reporting processes, which all go through a COIAGO as well, and then the financial reporting processes as well.

So just a couple of items just to kind of clean up a few things. The region itself makes recommendations to the One Ohio Foundation Board, which I sit on. However, before it actually gets to an approval process for the One Ohio Foundation Board, it goes through two other screening processes. So the Region four folks did an independent evaluation of the applications that came in. They rank ordered them and then they made recommendations to the One Ohio Foundation.

Those recommended for funding applications were then screened through the staff for legitimacy once again, but also through what's called an expert panel made up of various individuals from walks of life that are excelling in their field, just like it sounds. We actually have a local representative that sits on that expert panel, Deb Flores, CEO of the ZEF Center. They then clear it as an evidence based strategy or steeped in evidence. And then that goes to the grants management or grants committee of the One Ohio Foundation, who has a further discussion. By the way, I sit on that committee as well.

And then we clear it or not. And if we have questions, we push it back to the staff and then the staff go and chase down the answers and come back. The thing that I want you to understand is that once it gets through the grants committee, it goes to the One Ohio Foundation. It's tentatively approved as a contractual discussion in executive session, and then it contract negotiations begin between the One Ohio Foundation and that entity before anything's announced. And I think that's important to recognize because there was a lot of frustration in our communities around the state about why is it taking so long for this money to flow.

And that's the reason is that there had to be a lot of there was a lot of things behind the scenes that had to occur to assure we spent the money correctly. Right? It's just as hard to spend money wisely as it is to earn it in the first place. So that was a crucial moment. It's also important to point out that this was the first time that this had been done.

And we learned a heck of a lot going through this process. It started out with somewhere around $54,000,000 across the 19 regions. And there was way more ask than available funds, you can imagine. And I don't have the direct numbers on what our ask was. That's a One Ohio Foundation staff question.

And again, I'm going to encourage you to bring them in and they have a great presentation. And I'll be happy to work with your committee to bring them to Toledo. Short of that, as Mr. Bell has indicated, it is a tremendous amount of energy on the volunteers of the Region Four to score 41 grants 40 two-forty four something whatever our region was rank order them and do their day jobs as well. So I think they did a great job yeoman's effort.

And to date, eight. I think all Region IV funds have applicants have been that are going to be funded have been funded. There's eight and most of which are in the audience that you've already recognized here today. So I'll stop there and be happy to answer anything I can.

Sorry, if I may. I wanted to just add one final point to that that the funds for Region 4 are separate and allocated from the rest of the state. So the way the foundation monies out of that 55% are broken up is just like the city has our 1.0198% that's set. Region 4 has a set percentage. So we have the same percent coming out of any amount of money coming into the state in the foundation level.

And so that is the region's money. The way it's set up is that money whatever has been distributed is available for allocation through the process Scott provided. Provided. If it is not used in a given cycle, it just stays in the bank. So it stays in the the portion there. And I should say there's more particularities about how much of that 55% comes in and goes to the regions. There's some administrative holdbacks. Thank you, Scott. He passed me notes up here. So our percent of what comes out is for the region is 4.70282%.

Region 4. So that means out of the money that is pushed to the regions from those funds at this foundation, we get 4.70282%. And that again is similarly driven by the effects epidemic on the region as a whole. So same same kind of factors that went into determining the cities.

And the region comes out of a 55?

Correct. Okay. Again, some portions of that 55% go to administrative cost, things foundation level. The foundation, as Mr. Silek had said, the way they run that is kind of a staff question. But once they allocate for what's being dispersed, we get that 4.7% of what's being dispersed out to the various regions. And there's other fine details about the ability to have state level programming and combining regions for funding. But at the heart of it, the region gets its pot. And if they don't use it, it sits around till we till it does get used. So I just wanted to add that little detail.

Councilwoman Morris, thank you. Thank you so much, miss Hall.

Thank you, chair, and thank you all for coming and giving us this important information. It's a lot to digest. And I actually have a lot of questions. I will try to be as brief as I can. Steve, will you be the contract contact for the city on this? Yes,

I believe that is the case.

Okay. Thank you. And then I was going to ask about how that would be equitable and if it would be geographically how that 55% would be. Is there any amount limits on any of these grants, be it at the city or at the state level?

I can speak from a regional level. The funding is there for that calendar year, for that grant cycle, then there are no limits.

So I might apply for, I don't know, dollars 500,000. And as long as there's 500,000 then and it and it has merit it goes this whole process, I would be able to get that amount?

In theory, yes.

Okay. And is there a review by actual people? You know, I look at this and I just have a real issue that, you know, we have gone through a really dark time with this epidemic. And it takes a long time. I know good government takes a long time.

I was around with SBA funding during the pandemic, and that went too fast. And there were a lot of problems that happened with getting funds quickly out to people. I understand that. But I just think of all of the people that we've lost and all of the people who continue to struggle. And it just seems like a really long time to get funding out to people.

Like I said, I understand good governance, but I also know that people continue on the struggle every day. And we're going to lose a lot more people before we sometimes get these grants out to people. So I have real concerns about that. And I hope that you would take that back to your respective organizations whether it's the law firms, whether it's the organizations locally, whether it's the state folks that and I would like to think that everybody involved in this is altruistic and has a good heart and perhaps has been touched by this situation. I don't know that, but I really hope so.

It's a club that you never want to be a part of. I can tell you that. After losing a family member. Can somebody tell me, and I don't know if it's the folks sitting at the table, is there money that's going to be allocated for like Toledo Fire and Rescue? How much of that is coming to the city for back funds that we've already spent and funds that we could spend as the city as opposed to just organizations? And maybe you touched on that, but again, I was writing down like a crazy woman. So please please explain that to me.

I'm happy to field the question, and I might end up tagging mister Spitler in for some of the answer. But thank you for the question, councilwoman. Essentially, it's up to the city. So it's I've always kind of casually used the term sandbox when it comes to the local government share. So the kind of guardrails or box to operate within are those abatement strategies.

But absent that, it's really up to the legislatures to figure out how that money should be spent. And the intention with this with these settlements with One Ohio, I'll tell you, was to avoid the problems as much as we could that arose during the tobacco settlements, where we saw that there was no real local voice in how the funds were spent that came out of those tobacco settlements. The funds kind of went to the state level and didn't get down to the boots on the ground folks. And so the intent here is to give that 30% within the constraints of the abatement strategies to give the flexibility to the local governments to spend where you all see fit and where it's appropriate. Appropriate.

Again, you've got the box with the strategies as long as you can tie to one of those. It's up to you. And so that's the overall picture of how that can be spent. Really the lawyer answer of it depends. But for specifics, I'll pass it to Mr. Spitler in case he has any inside knowledge there.

Thank you.

I would just echo what Kara said. I mean, it's it while to underscore something Kara said earlier that it's up to our discretion as to how much we want to look at retroactive or prospective. There are immediate needs obviously with our first responders and I'm sure that they would love to let us know. We've been in discussion with them. So it's really going to be the decision, the joint decision between the administration and counsel as to how that $1,279,000 and growing.

But in dribs and drafts, it's not like we're going to get that every year necessarily. How we're going to use that and then whether that's for direct costs that we've seen in the past or supplies and then look at the kind of remediation sorry, the mitigation and evidence based programming and focus that with some of our 55% to collaborate with some of the folks in this room and the folks at this table. That's really going to be up to administration and the members of council.

Thank you. You know, it's so easy to create a drug and get people hooked. And it's really hard to clean up this mess and spend this money. It just I don't know if I'm angry. I don't know if I'm sad, but I didn't think I would have this kind of a reaction to this meeting today. So thank you. Thank you, chair.

Thank you. Councilwoman Morris. Councilwoman McPherson.

Thank you, chair. Just a couple of questions. On the Region 4 and when persons or groups apply for these funds, and know you said that it goes through a process and it has to be approved and that forth. But with a open door or not a amount set that they can apply for hundreds of thousands of dollars. My concern locally in applying for these things that we know that sometimes organizations can do good data, good reports, good everything, and then it's not affecting or benefiting those that it should be benefiting.

And I I have that concern because I'm sure, a lot of organizations, a lot of LLCs, five zero one c threes are up on this and know that it's out there. And it was just like starting a business with the ARPA dollars, and a lot of people came up with stuff. And I I don't know if there's a door or something that can really caution us for that, but that is a concern of mine that these dollars are actually used for the purposes that that they are presented for. And then I wanna follow-up on the local actually getting to on the boots, those on the ground, those families that were actually affected by this, those children that were actually affected because of parents hooked on this. Again, I'm I'm like her.

I'm I'm was not prepared for this, and so there's a lot of things running through my through my head. And it's all good. I just wish we could have came up with something like this when crack hit the street. I just I wish it would have been important when that hit the streets and took out a lot of people that I went to school with, lived live next door to play with. And those that's that's that's it.

I just wanna know how and for sure, and we can't be for sure, but the local dollars the local dollars gets to those that really need it and not get mixed up in fake stuff. I'm trying to be clear on words, so I'm really watching my language here. You can talk about it, and you can say you can maybe give me some feedback on it. You know, our churches deal with it. Our community centers deal with it.

Our schools deal with it. And I just wanna make sure this is a lot of money that's gonna be coming in. And we have kids that are on the street right now because mom or dad was strung out. We we got homeless people that are struggling with this because they got strung out on it. And and those are the ones that need these dollars, that need some help, some real help. So thank you. But thank you for presenting. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. You know, Skylak, you do a great job with everything. I I really appreciate this, and that's all I have.

I'll share quickly, and I appreciate that. And and I would like everybody to know that I I I take this very seriously from a regional perspective as well. And when I mention that I take this, this is an honor for me to serve on this board as a volunteer professionally and personally. It's every single day that I wake up to hearing that another person, another person that I know, another person from the past or somebody that I know from the present or from the rooms of recovery is no longer here. And so when we met, before I even became chair of this board, I brought an image of an individual in a hospital.

To remind everybody that this is we're here not to make face. We're not here to say yes or to say no or to choose sides. We're here to serve a purpose and to make sure that these funds get put to good use. And from attendance policies with the board to to to deliberation. And and, you know, you mentioned that these anybody can submit a beautiful grant and objectively it can look really nice, but there's a subjective component to it as well that that we talk about in closed in closed session, in executive session.

What this grant looks really good, but is this person applying from our region or is this a multi region grant? Or is this person from a different state? Or are they brick and mortar here? Or are they grassroots? Or, you know, we wanna make sure that these dollars are stretching as far as as far as they possibly can and going to good use. And I can assure you that as the board chair, that we are putting a lot of thought in to making sure that that happens. So I

just wanted to say that. Let me ask one other question. The grants that have been approved thus far, how many from the city of Toledo? And do or you can give it to us by referral. How many from the city of Toledo? And could

you give us the amounts of the grants received? I'm gonna ask for a definition of you mean located within the city of Toledo, applied by the city of Toledo. Let's do both. Okay. So I'm not aware of any application that was funded from an applicant as the city of Toledo.

Okay. So Let's set that aside.

Thank you. Okay. So then the others, you know them. They're sitting right here. And given the conversations and the statements that have been made, I think the folks that are going to do your next presentation, they have a challenge to exactly explain how the money that they will receive will hit the populations that you guys just talked about.

But let's talk about Tracy Pereman at Center of Hope and the Elevate program working with kids. Harbors LGBTQ, Lucas County Children's Services, ZEF Centers Recovery Supports. We have one that is a statewide application. They actually were funded in all 99 regions or I'm sorry 19 regions for recovery housing to help develop capacity within recovery housing for individuals with substance use disorders. And then Ohio Guidestone to support transportation and rent assistance.

And then Neighborhood Properties, Inc. To develop supportive housing for individuals in recovery. So and then I forgot Elvis House, which is criminal justice halfway house located right down here on I think it's Adams And 21st Street maybe. They similar to VOA. Think of it that way. And while they're located in Columbus, they have a halfway house here as well. Ohio Guidestone also is in, I think, half the county in the state. Their main office is in Cleveland, but they have a place right over here on Adams Street as well.

Okay. Thank you. So I

did want to say one other thing related to the funding because that's important. You asked Councilwoman Morris, you asked the amount and how all that works. Matt responded, If there's money there, it's fundable. But there's a nuance to that. And the nuance is that the application process is the funds available are limited to the amount that's been allocated by the One Ohio Foundation to the region.

And so if you're going to have a multi year grant, you could apply for something up to thirty six months. All thirty six months of that allocation came out of that year's allocation. So it's encumbered, so to speak, for that grant. So the next time somebody the next round, it'll the rules may morph. That's a question that you might want to ask the foundation staff if you're able to bring them in. But that premise is that you're living within your means and there's always a conversation about sustainability within the application process.

Ms. Wall, could you answer for me? I think this will be for either you or mister Spitler possibly. Let's say that there is a nonprofit that is working. They've got more than one location in these different regions.

If they apply, are they able to receive in more than one of the regions? Like, if I apply in Sleetel, and Cleveland also gets some too, can just the Cleveland entity get it, or what can I get it in more than one location having a nonprofit or the housing piece or all of that? Am I able to get it in more than one of the wait a minute. '19? What's it? '19?

Yes. Yes. It's it's '19.

I'm trying to keep up. I'm trying.

Good. Well, chairman Haas, I'm actually gonna pass probably over to mister Silek. He's as a member of the grants committee, he's got a little more knowledge of the inner workings there.

So the answer to your question is yes, but you apply individually to each region. So if you wanted funds from 19 regions, you created applications. And those 19 separate applications were all reviewed separately by the individual regions and scored and recommended. Then what happened was, and this is another good question for the Those were held to the last at the state so that they could get an economies of scale. So they would look at them across the region and go, Okay, I see you have 10 administration here, 10% administration here, but you have 19 recommendations for funding.

That doesn't make sense. Let's talk about what makes sense. And then whittled that down to what made sense for a statewide application. But we've had regions we're only part of one region statewide application. The Ohio Recovery Housing is, I believe, in all 19 regions. But we'll see applications like they applied in Region 1 for this, Region 4 for that, seven for that, and nine for that. And they're all different.

And so with that, mister Salak, then the the amounts would vary as well with the 19 different. It doesn't mean if I get, let's just say, $5 in Toledo or whatever Region 1, then that amount could vary in different regions according to the need or how you score it, correct? Both, actually. Yes. Because the regions had the ability to make a recommendation on what the funds what

the funding level recommendation was. So if you applied for 600, that doesn't necessarily mean you got 600 coming out of the regional level.

And in fact most were reduced to fit to the number. That's correct, right. Correct, yeah. Thank you. Councilwoman Morris.

One quick follow-up. So from the time that I apply as organization to the time that I actually get the money from the state, How is there any kind of an average timeline? Does the region have a certain amount of time to review? Does the staff that they review? Does the expert panel have a time frame to review? And then does the One Ohio have any time to review or a time frame to award? Is there any kind of guidelines with that?

I'm gonna dodge your question, but then I'm gonna try and answer it.

Okay. I'll appreciate that.

That is for the specifics of that, I think it's best that One Ohio Foundation. But I want to caution you request for these funds was overwhelming. In the end, I believe there was well over two fifty funded applicants.

Statewide? Pardon me? Statewide. Statewide. Yes.

Thousands of applications. The money requested far out exceeded the available funds. So there was a lot of thought that had to be put into that process. And because it was the first time that we had all went through this, it didn't get out as fast as what those folks in the community wanted it to be. And I think that the One Ohio Foundation would recognize that.

And we saw that with ARPA. So we understand that. But I guess if there's any kind of leeway, if there's you know and maybe it's already in the MOU and what have you. But I would just I would you know, you have a lot of volunteers like someone had had mentioned, you know, they have work and and so forth. I I would just think that in an effort to me to remain I don't know.

I don't even know the word. But, you know, to remain true to the mission of what we're doing here in an effort to be as expedient as we can. I would think that there would be at least a time frame. Is it two months? Is it is it you know I don't know what that would be.

But in my opinion, I would think that you would have to have those safeguards in there because otherwise again, I keep going back to the fact that time is money and time is is death. Time is addiction. And so the longer that we wait to hand out and the more kind of bureaucracy red tape and I know sometimes you have to have it there. I know about good governance but the longer the longer someone else and another family and more children are being affected by this. So I just ask you as our representatives to this board and to this process You know, again, thank you for what you do.

But keep in mind that what you're doing is so important for expediency and getting out these services to these families. Thank you.

I would just like to quickly comment that, as Mr. Silek said, I think that the foundation from a state level does recognize that this first year can get better in terms of process. Our Vice Chair, Ms. Janata McCullough, and myself had a debriefing with representatives to the state as well, and that was absolutely one of the number one topics that we pressed in terms of urgency. From a regional level, we turned them around relatively quickly. I'm pleased with the efforts that regional board put in to get those turned around quickly. But feedback from the state and back down, we absolutely passed on that feedback that that is important to everybody.

Thank you. Yeah. I have no doubt between you and Johnetta that there will be a lot of feedback. But I would just again, if you can take that back to this group or if they come in or what have you, you know, dedicated timelines would be, I think, probably a good way to go. So thank you very much.

Is there a place or a list where you can find the qualifications for applying for the grant? And the reason why I said that because I can't speak for any other council or even though I think they will agree, the more you hear about this money, People, hey. I need to have a meeting with you. I need to talk to you. You know, I need some of that money.

We we doing this, that. Like, they don't bring anything to the table, and they're just thinking we're in some space to just say here. And so I need to be able to go right to where this information is so they can do it. The1ohiorecovery.com. Thank you

so 1ohiorecoveryfoundationcom Sign up for their newsletter. They have a great website. It'll walk you through the whole process once the new process opens up. It tells you what they've done. It tells you their history.

It tells you all kind of what the region breakdown, who's on each region, all kinds of stuff related to what's going on. And then you get the newsletters on how what's rolling out you know on a weekly basis. So I think while you're while you'll have a lot of information, the best thing I think you can tell somebody is to go to oneohiorecoveryfoundation.com. Sign up for their sign up for their newsletter and poke around their website and they should be able to get everything they need. Thank you.

That's actually let me sorry. Just to it's one Ohio foundation. Yeah. One o one Ohio foundation dot com. And as and as council member and president Hartman had requested, we can send out the map and some of those other exhibits that were just too large to we didn't wanna saddle you guys with, like, 300 pages. So you can have that in an electronic format. Are

there any questions from the audience? Any questions at all? Anything? I am extremely thankful again for, chief Allison Armstrong, our city law director, mister Dale Imps, to our deputy mayor, Karen Poore, to all of our outstanding council members, to you. Thank you so much, to doctor Tracy Pearman that's here. I'm not sure. Is anybody else here from our other organizations that are on the list? Is anybody else here? Could you please identify just stand and let me know who you are so I could please recognize you and say thank you, please, so I'll know.

I'm doctor Phil Atkins from Harvard. We were a awardee of about $530,000 for LUETQ outreach program.

Thank you. Thank you, doctor. Thank you. I'm gonna come back. One second.

Jeff Delay, Unison Health. Jeff, Unison Health.

Good to see you, sir. Good to you, sir. Good I to see you, just wanna make sure I properly recognize everyone. Doctor Parin. We need to see you, doctor Parent. Happy to everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor. Parent and and mister.

Randy Muehl the Lucas County Children's Services.

Thank you, Mr. Muehl. Thank you so much. Is anyone else here? I wanna recognize everyone. We're gonna be bringing those in that didn't speak today. We're gonna try to get someone from, as mister, Salik suggested, from the state on this one to come in and talk. And those of you that are there, we're gonna talk to you in our next meeting about how you're using or how you're looking to use it. We're really trying to get more community members in here because so often we're accused of holding information or not getting it to the community or your organizations aren't helping in the community, and we wanna be able to say, that's not true. They were here.

Here's how they're doing it. And so really, we really, really thank you for being here. Now councilwoman McPherson, you had a question.

Oh. No. It was just that they were here and yes. Silic. I was was mentioning them, and that's the part that I would I didn't know we weren't gonna do it today, that those that have received funding as to how is it or what is it that you're doing? Or out of the four goals, recovery, prevention, services for children impacted, criminal justice, which ones were you selected for? Or is that that's what that was the question that I was

gonna ask What I was councilwoman Williams and I talked about councilwoman McPherson is less having this introduction first and then bringing them back because we could be here three and four hours and, you know, if we get everybody talking in. I didn't wanna hold anybody too long. So we were hoping to bring them back in the next meeting and then let them talk about that piece. Okay. I'm I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. I apologize.

I won't hold you too. Yep.

We we have enough me, believe me, we we talking about this a lot. A lot. Councilwoman Williams.

Just real quick to my colleagues. I've been over here playing on the website. So and it definitely has everything on there. Tells what they applied for, how much they got, and they got some good stuff going on. So I'm so happy to see that especially housing.

Just it's it's exciting to see how much money was awarded to this area for, even children's services. So I'm glad that we were able to tap into that. So I appreciate all the work that you guys are doing because like I said I am a child of a recovering addict and it was hard growing up. So knowing that we can tap into these dollars because a lot of the work can't people gotta eat, and doing that work is draining. And if I'm helping you and not feeding me, and so I appreciate these dollars being out.

And these people owe. And, yes, I do wish it was for the crack epidemic as well because you know? But since we have it, let's use it. I'm glad you guys were able to apply for it. Oh my god. This is just seeing the numbers, it just blew me back. It's already up to a million in my face right now that I looked, and that was just with two organizations. So I didn't add up the rest because it's too much money. But I'm so glad to have Matt on the board because just knowing your backstory and knowing what you went through and having some miss Janetta, I'm so glad she was there. I knew she wasn't gonna go away, but I'm glad that she's there.

But the work, the legal legal department and and you miss Kara and and Scott, he knows everything under under the sun. So glad to see that we have good people there working and doing a job. And I just can't wait till the next meeting to talk to the individuals to see what exactly what you're doing. Thank you. We

have a potential next day, but I think as good as this is flowing today, I'm gonna talk to my administrative assistant. We might move that up because I don't wanna lose traction with this. So it's on me, Andrea. I'm sorry, but we may move this up a little bit to keep yeah. So we'll talk. I wanna thank everyone. I'm I hope you heard my heart. I hope you heard the heart. It it this this is incredible, and I've known so many people to absolutely this has just been devastating. It has.

I've lived through it twice, crack cocaine, and now and now this, and it has been devastating. And and I hope I am thankful. I am so thankful for the work you're doing. Again, as councilwoman Moore says, we know good governance is it can be slow, but that something is being done that is actually happening, that you are volunteering more hours than you're getting paid for from our different agencies here. Thank you because, you know, to protect our police officers and our fire, fighters as they go into situations, never knowing reaching into people's pockets for things, and it could, you know, it it could just happen.

And so thank you for everything you're doing. Please please don't give up on this work. Please don't. Don't be weary in well doing. For in due season, you will reap you faint not. So don't give up on this. Help us. Help our city. We need you, and, we're gonna definitely do our best to have more people here the next time to hear what's going on. We'll get that next date out to you. And I wanna again thank president Hartman for allowing this time and and and and being here today. Anything else? If that'd be all oh, I'm sorry. Councilwoman Moore is live.

Sorry. And this is not related to this issue, but it is related to this committee. So I'm just putting in a referral for I'm requesting for a quote on having ShotSpotter in one square mile as opposed to the four square miles that we had in the previous contract, and but still staying in those same locations. So I will return that in, but I wanted to get that on the record. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. This meeting is adjourned.