Three nonprofits chosen by lawmakers to receive opioid settlement funding for addiction work will not receive that money after Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed parts of a bill Wednesday.
In a social media post, Reeves said he was rejecting the three line items, totaling $1.55 million, because they were not vetted by the council lawmakers created to oversee hundreds of millions of Mississippi’s opioid settlement dollars.
“I believe it would be imprudent for me to approve this spending without any knowledge of what or who these entities are or the specific purpose and expertise that would warrant them receiving funds,” Reeves said.
The Legislature has given itself the option to return to the Capitol before next Wednesday to try to override vetoes, but leaders have not yet said whether they will do so. It is rare for lawmakers to override any veto. Doing so takes a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate.
The advisory council, led by Attorney General Lynn Fitch and run by her office, is set to oversee nearly $300 million of money from companies accused of contributing to thousands of Mississippi overdose deaths. That money began flowing to states in 2022 and is expected to continue through 2040.
The council created a grant application process last summer to review project proposals to prevent more Mississippi overdoses. In December, it sent recommendations for the Legislature to consider during the three-month session that started in January, although some council members questioned the council’s decisions throughout the review process.
The Mississippi Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council meets at the Carroll Gartin Justice Building in Jackson, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Reeves said the organizations for which he vetoed funding did not comply with the application process. But all three submitted proposals for opioid settlement funds, according to emails and applications reviewed by Mississippi Today.
Reeves’ office did not respond to an email asking how the governor determined the applications did not follow the advisory council’s process.
The Attorney General’s Office sent Finally First’s proposal to Mississippi Today in December after the newsroom requested all the funding requests the council received. Caleb Pracht, who often acted as council chair last fall, confirmed receiving Hope Squad’s application in an email.
Mississippi Today spoke with Eric Workman, Hope Squad’s chief executive officer, soon after the Legislature proposed sending his organization $500,000. When the newsroom told him the council never listed his organization’s application with the others, Workman said he wondered whether there was a clerical error in the committee’s review process.
“We got a letter back saying it (the application) had been received,” he said before Reeves vetoed the grant. “We never heard anything (further).”
MaryAsa Lee, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, did not respond to an email asking why Hope Squad and Finally First’s applications were never reviewed by the advisory council.
The advisory council notes list an application from Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence, which would have partnered with four other organizations to expand trauma-informed addiction response efforts. But it was never publicly graded. The council listed the application as incomplete because of a typo in the project budget.
Stacey Riley, the center’s chief executive officer, said she was hopeful when the Legislature tried to fund her application. The nonviolence center has worked for years to prevent more drug deaths, including through distributing the overdose-reversing medication naloxone.
While her organization’s proposal wasn’t reviewed by the advisory council, she disagrees with Reeves’ assessment that it didn’t comply with the process.
“To have the work that we do discounted on a technicality, that’s what’s devastating,” Riley said.
Lawmakers spread other opioid settlement allocations throughout six other bills, most of which are still being considered by Reeves.
