Idaho Panel Weighs $3 Million in Drug Prevention Bids From Tobacco Fund

BOISE — Ten organizations asked Idaho lawmakers Friday for a combined $3.3 million out of the state's tobacco settlement endowment, a list that runs from a $30,000 parenting class in East Idaho to a $1.6 million expansion of Boys and Girls Clubs prevention programming. The Joint Millennium Fund Committee, which oversees an endowment worth nearly $43.5 million, heard each request and made no decisions.

The fund is restricted to drug and alcohol prevention, and the panel's co-chair said that restriction is where he intends to keep the debate.

"I am laser-focused on prevention," said Sen. Van Burtenshaw, R-Terreton, who co-chairs the committee. "I have three deaths in my family already, and two or three more that are getting close. I've seen abuse. I've seen the problem, and as long as I have this position, I'm gonna focus on that."

Any recommendation the committee settles on still needs approval from the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee when the legislature convenes in January, so Friday's hearing was the opening of a budget conversation rather than a vote on spending. According to Senior Budget and Policy Analyst Janica Bisharat, some of the projects the committee approved earlier have not yet been funded.

A Salmon recovery center running through its settlement money

One of the day's treatment-focused requests came from River of No Return Recovery Center, which opened in Salmon in January with opioid settlement money from Lemhi and Custer counties. Executive Director Annie Stokes asked for $150,000, saying the county money is nearly spent and the center has no comparable alternative in its service area.

The center provides peer support, transportation to inpatient treatment and court hearings, parenting classes, women's groups and GED coursework. "We are working to support the whole person, not just their addiction, but their family, their education, their parenting, their health, and their future," Stokes told the committee.

That layered, non-clinical model is what the request is meant to protect: peer support, transportation and classes offered locally, rather than what a residential treatment program hours away could do for people who need to stay in Salmon.

A maternity program in McCall, priced for five months

Change House, a recently established nonprofit, asked for $623,300 to cover the first five months of a program for pregnant women and mothers in McCall. Founder Jada York said the money would pay for two months of staff training, three months of clinical care and housing for participants.

"The goal of our program is simple: decrease overdose and substance abuse rates, decrease foster care placement due to parental substance abuse, and increase family reunification through a family-centered approach with a focus on women and youth health," York said.

The request is deliberately front-loaded. After the five months, York said the organization would bill Medicaid and pursue the grants that are available only to established programs.

Accreditation, a conference and a class for cited teenagers

Several smaller requests concerned the workforce and quality infrastructure around treatment rather than treatment itself.

Recovery Idaho sought $32,780 to build a voluntary accreditation program for recovery centers, with shared standards and outcome metrics. "The problem right now is that the recovery community centers throughout the state are very well intentioned, but there's a fair amount of variation and maybe not enough tracking of what exactly happens and what those outcomes are," board member Andra Smith Hansen said.

The Foundation for the Idaho Conference on Alcohol and Drug Dependency asked for $28,000 for scholarships so behavioral health workers outside the Treasure Valley can attend the group's annual conference and earn continuing education credits. Rep. Marco Erickson, R-Idaho Falls, backed the request, saying the networking is part of the value. A separate $71,382 request from Boise State University's Idaho RADAR Center would print and stockpile prevention materials, a job the center says it absorbed after a federal agency stopped distributing printed materials around 2020.

Command Point Training Group, founded by former Meridian police officer John Gonzales, requested $45,000 to build a statewide online course for teenagers cited for tobacco, alcohol or other drug use, and for parents who enroll their children. The pilot would run about 18 live sessions for roughly 350 teens.

Boys and Girls Clubs, a boxing gym and nine counties of parenting classes

The two largest prevention requests came from organizations that do not describe themselves as treatment providers. The Boys and Girls Clubs of Idaho asked for just over $1.6 million to extend evidence-based prevention, mentoring and family engagement programming, with Executive Director Mark Kuhnhausen saying the clubs would seek local matching money to double the state investment.

Razor's Edge Boxing Club in Idaho Falls requested $500,000 to build a larger facility. Coach Dustin Irelan said instructors already promote "a substance-free lifestyle and discuss the risk of alcohol, tobacco, vaping, and drug use," and that the club would add a structured prevention curriculum for four age groups each year. "We're not simply asking for support to expand a boxing gym, we're asking for support to expand access to a positive youth development program," he said.

Two requests would build statewide coordination. The Recovery Community Alliance of Idaho asked for $267,615 for a statewide recovery office handling technical support, workforce development and data collection. The Center for Hope, based in East Idaho, requested $30,000 to expand a 10-week education program for parents in treatment court, diversion or community reentry, serving nine counties from Bonneville to Teton.

Where the money comes from

Idaho's Millennium Fund is an endowment built from the state's share of the 1998 tobacco litigation, and its balance stood at nearly $43.5 million as of Sept. 30. The principal is invested, and the committee allocates from it for prevention and cessation work only.

That distinction matters in a state where opioid settlement money has been directed toward rural priorities through a separate process. River of No Return shows how the two streams interact: opioid settlement dollars started the center, and tobacco money would keep it open while Stokes looks for other grants.

Nothing in Friday's hearing bound lawmakers to any of the ten numbers, and the committee did not settle on a recommended list. Bisharat's note that earlier approvals remain unfunded suggests the queue, not the order of Friday's presentations, may shape which requests move first.