Schools to Share in Upcoming State Opioid Abatement Grant Program

Rules approved this week by the state’s Opioid Abatement Fund Council (OAFC) will reserve up to $25 million in grants to Texas schools to promote substance abuse prevention and awareness for students in grades K to 12, and for their parents and caregivers, state Comptroller Glen Hegar announced.

Hegar added that the council also allocated up to $25 million in grants for each of these two initiatives:

• Distributing — to Texas communities hit by the opioid crisis — Naloxone, a medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdoses.

• Bolstering the training, recruiting and retention — and providing certification assistance — for the state’s behavioral health workforce.

Details about the grants will be released over the coming year.

• Background: The Legislature formed the OAFC in 2021 to ensure money recovered through the joint efforts of the state and its political subdivisions from statewide opioid settlement agreements is allocated fairly and spent to remediate the opioid crisis using efficient, cost-effective methods.
  
  Last March, Hegar announced a first-round payment of $47.1 million to political subdivisions from the Opioid Abatement Trust Fund to address opioid-related harms in their communities.