National Prescription Opiate Consultant Litigation

Under the Settlement, class members are eligible to apply to the Public School District Opioid Recovery Trust for funds to help abate or mitigate the opioid crisis in their school district. Grant amounts have yet to be determined and will depend on the number of grant proposals received and selected by the independent Trustee for awards. Under the Settlement, no school district is guaranteed any settlement funds. The Trust will not distribute settlement funds on a pro rata or proportional basis.

Details about how to apply for an award from the Trust and about the structure and purposes of the Trust are available at McKinseySchoolDistrictOpioidSettlement.com. The Trust will be administered by Dr. Andrés Alonso, former deputy chancellor of the New York City public school system and Chief Executive Officer of the Baltimore City public school system. Dr. Alonso will solicit and review funding proposals from school districts nationwide. From among the proposals received, he will make grants to a limited number of school districts with the intent of directing the settlement money where it can be expected to have the greatest impact. Consistent with that purpose, Dr. Alonso will give priority, for example, to the following:

1. Applications for funding from public school districts (or consortia of districts) in areas most affected by the opioid crisis.
2. Applications from underfunded school districts or school districts with low per-pupil spending.
3. Applications that target services to children under the age of 8, where the potential gains are likely to be the highest.
4. Applications showing that funds received will be used to leverage matching funds from other sources, increasing their impact.
5. Applications showing how programs funded by the grant will become self-sustaining once the grant money has been spent.
6. Applications for projects that are innovative or designed to be replicated elsewhere.

Under the Trust, Trust funds must be used for direct services or innovative projects that benefit students. Settlement funds will not be available to support research. Uses that align with the abatement and mitigation goals and the criteria identified above might include the following:

• Grants for direct services, including to hire special education teachers, behavior specialists, counselors, social workers, reading coaches, or occupational, mental health, or physical therapists.
• Grants for multi-disciplinary programs, such as partnerships between public school districts and medical or social services providers.
• Grants for projects with nationwide applicability for training and developing staff to provide special education or multi-disciplinary services to abate and mitigate the effects of the opioid epidemic in schools.

The Public School District Opioid Recovery Trust will also be funded by amounts collected from other opioid defendants in other cases from which school districts have received or expect to receive additional recoveries. Class Counsel have entered terms sheets in the Purdue, Mallinckrodt, and Endo bankruptcies for $25.5 million, $5 million, and $3 million respectively. The United States Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Purdue, likely causing a year or more in delay for that bankruptcy plan to become effective. The Mallinckrodt recovery is secured and escrowed. The Endo recovery is subject to bankruptcy court approval. The $23 million in McKinsey, combined with the $33.5 million potentially recovered in the bankruptcy proceedings, allows for a potential recovery for the Public School District Opioid Recovery Trust of $56.5 million. This number could grow with other recoveries from other opioid defendants.