Avoyelles Parish Opens $102,000 Round of Opioid Abatement Funding

The Avoyelles Parish Police Jury has $102,000 in national opioid settlement money left to distribute in its latest funding round, and organizations that want a share have until Oct. 16 to submit proposals.

The round is the fifth the central Louisiana parish has run since settlement payments began arriving. Avoyelles has received $670,000 in all, according to figures the Police Jury provided to Avoyelles Today: $115,000 in July 2023, $115,000 in September 2024, $160,000 in February 2025 and $280,000 in August 2025.

That money has gone to a small, stable group of local organizations rather than to any new institution. The Washington Street Hope Center received $20,000 in each of the first three rounds and $75,000 last August. Avoyelles Sleeves Up received $55,000 in 2023, $50,000 in 2024, $55,000 in February 2025 and $85,000 in the August 2025 round. The Avoyelles Community Youth Coalition has been awarded between $28,000 and $53,000 each time, the Avoyelles Adult Drug Court between $9,500 and $34,500, and the district attorney's office $7,500 in 2024 and $32,500 in 2025.

A gap the parish's own numbers show

The February 2025 round is also where the reporting gets uneven. The parish said it received $160,000 that month, but the itemized awards it released to the newspaper totaled $115,000 — a $45,000 difference that went unexplained in the accounting provided.

The discrepancy is the kind of detail that settlement watchdogs have flagged as money moves from state coffers to local governments, where oversight is thinner. Avoyelles manages payments that arrive in five-figure increments, and the accounting that accompanies them is often a single page of award amounts attached to a Police Jury agenda.

How the decision gets made

Proposals in Avoyelles go first to the Avoyelles Parish Opioid Abatement Committee, which determines whether a proposed use complies with the Opioid Settlement Memorandum of Understanding — the agreement that governs what the money may be spent on. The committee then makes recommendations to the Police Jury, which takes final action by vote.

There is no separate ceiling on what any single organization may request this round. The only firm limit is the $102,000 total, which means the size of individual awards will depend on how many proposals come in, whether the proposed uses clear the MOU requirements and what the Jury ultimately approves.

Awards will be announced after the committee finishes its review and the Jury votes.

Why the money cannot simply be spent

The dollars are not general revenue. Under the national settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors, states and their political subdivisions must direct the funds to abatement — prevention, treatment, recovery support and a defined list of related services. Louisiana signed an Opioid Settlement Memorandum of Understanding laying out those categories and the process for spending.

That restriction explains the shape of the Avoyelles rounds. The parish is not building a clinic. It is funding the organizations that already deliver services locally: a recovery center, a youth prevention coalition, a treatment-based drug court and the prosecutor who staffs it. Those are permitted abatement uses, and they are the organizations with the infrastructure to absorb a grant measured in tens of thousands of dollars.

Payments continue on their own schedule

Avoyelles expects to keep receiving settlement payments according to the schedules written into the various national agreements. How long the payments continue and how large they are will vary by settlement, which means the $102,000 on the table now is not a final figure for the parish.

For residents, the practical consequence is that local substance use disorder treatment and recovery capacity is assembled each year out of a competitive round rather than carried on a standing budget line. The outpatient and recovery programs that take the money have to make their case in a proposal every time, and the parish decides each round how much of a shrinking or growing payment stream to push out the door.