Maryland residents can now follow the state’s opioid settlement money almost dollar for dollar. Officials have rolled out a public Prescription Opioid Settlement Dashboard that spells out how the state and local governments are receiving and spending cash tied to the opioid epidemic. The tool shows Maryland expects to pull in more than $747 million from finalized opioid settlements over the next 15 years, and as of the 2025 fiscal year, roughly $245.8 million had already been paid into state coffers. State officials say nearly $170 million of that total is already earmarked or available for counties, cities, and towns.
The dashboard debuted on May 28, 2026, at an event led by Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller and the Maryland Office of Overdose Response, according to the Maryland Department of Health. State leaders are pitching the interactive platform as a single place for residents to see “how opioid settlement dollars are being received, distributed, and invested across the state.” Officials say it will be updated each fall after local jurisdictions verify and submit their annual expenditure reports.
The tool is the product of 2025 legislation that requires public reporting of Opioid Restitution Fund spending, laid out in House Bill 798 and its Senate cross-file. “We owe it to the communities across Maryland that have borne the brunt of this crisis to use the funds as effectively and transparently as possible,” Maryland Special Secretary of Overdose Response Emily Keller said in the state’s announcement, which also details the dashboard’s purpose and update schedule.
Maryland’s move fits into a broader national push to keep tabs on more than $50 billion in opioid settlement money that is being sent to states and localities, an effort examined by KFF Health News. Advocates and journalists argue that public dashboards make it much easier to see whether officials are steering settlement dollars into evidence-based treatment, harm reduction, and recovery services, instead of quietly plugging unrelated holes in local budgets.
How the money is split and tracked
According to a state primer on Maryland’s settlement framework, most of the money is designed to land close to home, in local governments, while a portion stays in state hands for competitive grants and broader programs. The Opioid Restitution Fund primer describes a roughly 70-30 split in practice: 25% goes out as a direct local allocation, 45% is reserved for targeted abatement grants for local projects, and the remaining 30% is divided into a 15% State Allocation plus a 15% State Discretionary Abatement Fund that supports competitive grants and state-run programs, per the Maryland Office of Overdose Response. The same primer lays out early payment totals and projections that underscore how much of the settlement pot is expected to flow back to counties, cities, and towns if those projections hold.
Why transparency matters now
The launch comes as Maryland continues to record a heavy overdose toll. Reporting by the Baltimore Sun notes there were 969 opioid-related deaths in the state from May 2025 through April 2026, with fentanyl cited in roughly 850 of those cases. State officials have pointed to declines in some measures since the height of the pandemic, but public health experts quoted in local coverage say tracking settlement dollars and overdose outcomes side by side is the only real way to gauge whether the grants are reducing harm.
Officials say the dashboard is meant to give residents and local leaders a clearer view of grant awards, spending plans, and performance measures as settlement money continues to arrive over the coming years. The lingering question is whether those highly visible dollars will translate into sustained investments in treatment, harm reduction, and recovery services in the communities that have been hit the hardest.
