Maryland’s counties will receive a total of $36.2M from almost $38M in the first round of disbursements to local governments.

In a press release, Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh announced yesterday that all counties and municipalities participating in settlements with the former opioids manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, and opioid distributors, McKesson, Cardinal Health, and Amerisource Bergen will begin receiving their first payments in the coming weeks.

The total amount Maryland expects to receive as part of these settlements is $395M over 18 years. This total does not include potential monies from the recent pharmaceutical settlement intentions covered here on the blog last week.

The Attorney General’s press release went on to thank the parties involved in organizing the distributions along with his staff, members of the General Assembly, State and local officials, and the Maryland Association of Counties and Maryland Municipal League.

The formal certification of payment amounts will set in motion a process that is expected to result in initial distributions to counties landing in bank accounts by the end of December.

The settlement administration firm, Brown Greer PLC, will soon provide notice of the final amounts of the payments it will make directly to participating subdivisions for 2022 under the settlements. After receiving the notice from Brown Greer, subdivisions will have 21 days to provide the information necessary to receive payments and to make any objections. If no objections are raised then payments will follow approximately 7 to 10 days later.

Below are the first round totals by county for payments in excess of $1M:

Anne Arundel – $4.3M

Baltimore County – $7.8M

Carroll – $1.3M

Cecil – $1.5M

Frederick – $1.6M

Harford – $2.2M

Howard – $1.7M

Montgomery – $4.6M

Prince George’s – $3.8M

Washington – $1.2M

See the full spreadsheet of payments to counties and municipalities.