Where Are New York's Opioid Settlement Millions Going? Watchdogs Say the State Won't Tell Them

Robert Kent spent years working inside New York's addiction services bureaucracy. As general counsel to the state Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS) in the early 2010s, he helped shape policies meant to expand treatment access and save lives.

Now, as president of Kent Strategic Advisors, he's filing public records requests against his former employer — and he doesn't like what he's finding.

In late 2025, Kent commissioned a law firm to review New York's opioid settlement agreements and compare them against OASAS's public reporting. The conclusion: the agency is failing to meet its legal obligations for transparency around how it spends settlement money.

"They haven't done the annual report that the law requires," Kent told Capital Tonight in February. "We can't see whether they're following the law or not."

At stake is more than $1.5 billion flowing into New York over the next 18 years from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors. The money is supposed to fund addiction treatment, prevention programs, and recovery support services — expanding New York's capacity to address a crisis that has killed tens of thousands of residents.

But without clear reporting on where that money goes, advocates say, there's no way to know if it's being used properly — or if it's simply filling budget holes that should be covered by the state's general fund.

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The Law vs. The Reality

When New York lawmakers authorized the opioid settlement fund in 2021, they built in safeguards meant to prevent the money from disappearing into state coffers. They created an independent advisory board. They mandated annual public reports. And they wrote explicit language prohibiting the state from using settlement dollars to "supplant" — or replace — existing addiction services funding.

The law is clear: opioid settlement money must supplement state spending, not substitute for it.

But proving compliance requires data that OASAS has declined to provide, according to Kent and members of the Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Board.

The board's November 2025 report — based on feedback from advisory members and members of the public — concluded that the state "is not fulfilling its duty to transparently distribute opioid settlement funds."

Critical information is missing. How much funding did treatment providers receive from the state before settlement money arrived? How much are they receiving now? Are settlement grants replacing line items that previously came from Albany's general budget?

"The first part of what would be in an annual report is how much does an awardee of settlement funds currently get," Kent explained. "The Settlement Board has also been asking for this information since 2021."

OASAS has not produced that report.

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The Supplanting Question

The distinction between supplementing and supplanting isn't academic. It's the difference between $1.5 billion in new addiction services and $1.5 billion that frees up state tax dollars for other purposes.

Supplanting happens when a government agency uses outside money — like settlement funds — to pay for programs it was already funding, then redirects the original budget allocation elsewhere. It's a shell game that leaves the service landscape unchanged while the state pockets the difference.

New York's opioid settlement agreements explicitly forbid this. So does state law.

But without baseline funding data — what providers were getting before settlement money arrived — it's impossible to verify compliance.

Kent's legal review found that OASAS has failed to provide the financial transparency needed to answer that question. The agency publishes lists of settlement-funded initiatives and award amounts on its website. But it doesn't show historical funding levels for those same programs, making before-and-after comparisons impossible.

"To protect against supplanting, they did two things," Kent said. "They created a board to give advice. They do. They also set up an annual report for the state to submit to the public. They haven't done that."

OASAS disputes the characterization. In a statement to Capital Tonight, a spokesperson said the agency has provided "substantial information" to the advisory board and the public, including "an accounting of money disbursed and the award process used, the names of recipients and the amounts awarded, and criteria for awards."

The statement added: "The settlement agreements do not allow for this funding to be used to supplant other funding, we have not used the funding for this purpose, and there are no plans to do so in the future."

But advocates say that assurance means little without the data to back it up.

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County-Level Opacity

The transparency problem extends beyond Albany. Counties across New York have received millions in opioid settlement allocations — and many haven't disclosed how they're spending it.

A November 2025 law required all local governments receiving settlement funds to publish annual reports detailing their use. The mandate took effect immediately.

Months later, compliance is spotty at best. A January 2026 investigation by New York Focus found that many counties had not posted disclosures at all, despite the state requirement.

Those that did publish reports offered varying levels of detail. Some included line-item breakdowns of spending. Others provided only vague summaries or totals. There is no standardized format, and no central repository where the public can review county-level spending statewide.

The result is a patchwork of accountability that makes it nearly impossible to track how settlement money is being deployed on the ground — where it's supposed to have the most impact.

Yonkers, for example, created a dedicated webpage outlining its settlement fund plan and publishing quarterly updates. Monroe County's opioid settlement-funded clinic in Rochester opened with a press release and site tour. But dozens of other counties have been silent.

For drug policy advocates, the lack of standardized, accessible reporting undermines the entire point of the settlement: to ensure that opioid manufacturers' misconduct directly funds the repair of the damage they caused.

"If we can't see where the money is going," one advocate told New York Focus, "how do we know it's going to the right places?"

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What's at Stake

New York expects to receive approximately $1.5 billion from multiple opioid settlements through 2043. The lion's share comes from agreements with pharmaceutical distributors like McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen, as well as manufacturers including Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma.

Under the terms of those settlements, 75% of New York's allocation goes to counties and New York City for local addiction services. The remaining 25% flows to OASAS for statewide initiatives.

The advisory board is responsible for recommending how OASAS should allocate its share. Since 2021, the board has proposed funding for mobile medication units, expanded naloxone distribution, residential treatment beds, and workforce training.

OASAS has implemented many of those recommendations. But it has also rejected others, sometimes without clear explanation. And it has launched initiatives — like the Rochester clinic — that were not on the advisory board's priority list, raising questions about how allocation decisions are made.

Without comprehensive reporting, it's difficult to assess whether the state is maximizing the public health impact of settlement dollars or simply using them to paper over budget shortfalls.

The consequences aren't abstract. New York's overdose death toll dropped 32% in 2025 — the steepest decline in years — thanks in part to expanded access to medication-assisted treatment and harm reduction programs. Settlement funds helped fuel that expansion.

But sustaining those gains will require continued investment. If settlement money is quietly replacing — rather than expanding — state funding, New York's addiction services infrastructure could plateau or even contract as settlement payments wind down in future years.

That's the risk advocates say transparency is meant to prevent.

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OASAS Pushes Back

OASAS officials have defended the agency's transparency record, pointing to publicly available data on settlement spending.

The agency's website includes a tracker showing settlement funds distributed by fiscal year, initiative, and county. It lists every funded program and the dollar amount awarded. And it publishes the advisory board's meeting agendas, minutes, and recommendations.

"We will continue to make this information public moving forward," an OASAS spokesperson said.

But that data doesn't answer the question at the heart of the transparency dispute: Are settlement funds supplementing existing state addiction spending, or replacing it?

To answer that, the public would need to see baseline funding for addiction services before settlement money arrived, and how that baseline has changed since. OASAS has not released that information.

The agency also has not published the annual report required by law, which would include details on how settlement funds interact with other state and federal funding streams.

Without it, Kent and others argue, the public is left to take OASAS at its word — a position that undermines the entire purpose of legislative transparency mandates.

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What Needs to Change

Drug policy experts and advisory board members say the solution is straightforward: publish the data the law requires.

That means an annual report showing baseline funding levels for addiction services, how settlement allocations have been layered on top, and whether any state general fund dollars have been redirected away from addiction services since settlement money began flowing.

It also means creating a standardized, centralized reporting system for counties, so the public can track local spending without hunting through dozens of municipal websites — or finding nothing at all.

Kent has called for the state comptroller or attorney general to conduct an independent audit of OASAS's settlement fund management. So far, neither office has announced plans to do so.

In the meantime, the Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Board continues to meet quarterly, review OASAS proposals, and issue recommendations. Its November 2025 report made clear that transparency remains a top concern.

"The board and interested members of the public feel the state is not fulfilling its duty," the report concluded.

New York will receive opioid settlement payments for nearly two more decades. Whether that money fuels a historic expansion of addiction treatment — or quietly disappears into budget ledgers — may depend on whether the state is willing to show its work.

For now, the answer remains out of reach.