by Joan Eliyesil ·
Friday, October 4, 2024
A proposal to use a portion of the town’s opioid settlement funds to pay for a video designed to communicate the dangers of opioids came before the Select Board twice in September. But despite efforts by some members to push the project forward, others are reluctant to spend settlement funds before the Board of Health makes its recommendation.
The Select Board is the ultimate overseer of spending the funds, but it must still follow the state’s guidelines. Settlement funds may be spent only on community-based substance use prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery support. The Board of Health, which receives advice from the Department of Public Health on how best to use the funds, is in the process of setting up an Addiction Abatement Fund working group to review spending proposals.
The Select Board also allocated about $10,000 of settlement funds to the Board of Health so it could hire a consulting group to help it understand the town’s opioid abatement needs. The consultants recently received input from residents on how best to use settlement funds via a survey; the results will be available in November. Three public listening sessions are also planned for some time this month.
But proposals are already on the table, including the video. At a May 7 Select Board meeting, Police Chief James Babu requested $24,750 to create “a community outreach video focused on the uses and dangers of opioids.” The 20- to 30-minute film would be produced by Fire Engine Productions, founded by Harvard resident and firefighter Robert Curran. The film would tell the story of a Harvard family dealing with the loss of a loved one to an opioid overdose, and it would include information on recognizing the signs of addiction and seeking treatment. The board chose to delay a vote to fund the film until it understood more about how settlement funds were to be spent.
This fall, the topic of the film reemerged when Curran told the board he would like to shoot some footage while leaves are still on the trees, to coincide with the time of year when some of the events that would be documented in the film took place. At a Sept. 4 meeting, the board once again discussed allocating settlement funds for the video so Curran could begin shooting.
Board of Health member Brad Holub said he thought the board should wait until the survey data was compiled before spending any further settlement funds. He questioned the format of the video, asking if shorter TikTok video clips might be more effective, and he said it would be useful to have the public weigh in on that during the upcoming listening sessions.
Select Board member SusanMary Redinger said she wanted to spend the money in the most effective way, and that this project should be weighed against other opportunities. Fellow board member Charles Oliver said he wanted to make sure the video would have an impact in other Massachusetts towns and counties, since Harvard received “more money than we should have.”
An article in the June 21 issue of the Press revealed the formula used to allocate money to the 351 towns in Massachusetts was skewed toward towns that had more money to spend, particularly on education. In addition, towns in regional school districts, such as Ayer and Bolton, received only a fraction of what towns that run their own schools received. Ayer’s total settlement funds of about $67,000 and Bolton’s total of about $41,000 pale in comparison to Harvard’s windfall of over $620,000. So far, the town has received just over $186,000 in opioid abatement funds, and it will continue to receive annual payments totaling over $434,000 between now and 2038.
After a lengthy discussion, the Select Board decided once again to delay funding the film until the working group could be set up and the survey results compiled. But at its Sept. 17 meeting, member Rich Maiore proposed a compromise that would allow Curran to start shooting the film this fall. Maiore said this first phase of the project would require only $5,000, and he asked the board to vote on allocating that amount toward the film, with the understanding that the Board of Health’s working group would have input to any further spending on the project. He told the board Holub “agreed it sounded like a good compromise.”
In an email to the Press, however, Holub said while Maiore did share the compromise idea with him, he was not on board with it. He said he told Maiore that while it sounded like a reasonable compromise, he was still unsure about “how it really drives a data-driven impact that we can monitor.” He told the Press he was not in favor of spending any of the settlement funds until the survey results are in and the working group has a chance to review proposals.
Select Board members Kara Minar and Charles Oliver both pushed back on the compromise, saying they would first like to understand if and how the state’s procurement rules apply to projects funded with opioid settlement funds. Oliver also said he still wasn’t convinced that the video was an effective use of the funds.
The discussion became quite heated when Minar said there was no vote mentioned on the agenda, and Maiore pushed back, saying the board frequently voted on topics when a vote wasn’t mentioned in the agenda. “To pull this is just BS,” Maiore said. Ludwig questioned why Minar and Oliver were throwing up roadblocks to the project.
The board was at an impasse, and Oliver pointed out that since only four members were present at the meeting, and the vote would likely be 2-2, they should delay voting until an odd number of members were present. Ludwig said he would get the answers to the procurement question and put the vote on the agenda for the board’s next meeting, scheduled for Oct. 15.