CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The new chairman of the West Virginia First Foundation Board says he’s hoping to build a framework that will help combat the state’s opioid crisis for years to come.
Matt Harvey, who serves as the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney, said their task is to not only distribute $1 billion dollars in opioid settlement funds to counties and municipalities now, but to also to invest it.
“That’s the purpose of the foundation is to preserve these funds into the future for as long as they’re needed,” Harvey said on Tuesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
The board met for the first time in Charleston Monday. Harvey said while much of the meeting was “organizational,” it was also about establishing a starting place. He said they’ve been tackling a number of tasks in this first week.
“We created a bank account so we could receive the funds. Soon, we’ll have to hire an executive director, there’s personnel, there’s office space that needs to be secured,” he said.
During Monday’s meeting, state Health Officer Dr. Matthew Christiansen elected as vice-chair. Former State Secretary of Homeland Security Jeff Sandy was selected as treasurer and Harrison County Schools Superintendent Dora Sutler will serve as secretary.
The board also wants to hear from those on the ground.
“We’ll be able to pull in experts in these areas of prevention enforcement and treatment around the state to tell us as the board and the executive director what works, what doesn’t work, what is suitable for a particular area, what’s not, what’s needed,” he said.
Harvey called it a “tremendous task” and a “heavy responsibility” to make sure these funds go toward prevention enforcement and treatment. He said they need to be smart about not funding programs that are already hard at work.
“We don’t want to duplicate resources if there’s a really well-run program in an area, we don’t want to knock them out of business. We want to support them and prop them up if we can,” Harvey said.
Currently, the state has $300 million approved to start going out to communities by the end of this year. State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said Monday that some settlements won’t come in until as late as 2036.