(a) There is established a separate and distinct Fund in the Treasury of the Government of the Virgin Islands to be designated as the “Opioid Abatement Trust Fund”. The Commissioner of Finance shall maintain the Fund separate and apart from any other Funds of the Government of the Virgin Islands, including the General Fund. No monies in the Fund shall be available for expenditure or disbursement except as provided in this section. The Fund shall be a continuing Fund; amounts credited to the Fund are not be subject to further appropriation and monies remaining in the Fund at the end of a fiscal year shall not be transferred to the General Fund.
(b) The Fund shall include all money, payments, proceeds, attorneys’ fees and costs or other things of value in the nature of civil damages or other payments received each year by the Government of the Virgin Islands by way of verdict, judgment, compromise, or settlement of any case or controversy relating to the manufacturing, marketing, distribution, promoting, or dispensing of opioids; monies appropriated by or transferred to the Fund by the Legislature of the Virgin Islands; gifts donations, grants, bequests and other monies received by the Territory on the Fund’s behalf. The Fund shall include any interest earned on such amounts.
(c) Monies in the Fund must be used to supplement and not supplant or replace any other Funds including federal or local Funds, which would otherwise have been expended for substance use disorder prevention, treatment, recovery or harm reduction services or programs. Further, general operating Funds or baseline funding may not be reduced due to monies expended from the Fund.
(d) Monies in the Fund must be expended to mitigate the impacts of the opioid epidemic in the Virgin Islands, including, but not limited to, expanding access to opioid use disorder prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery options. Monies must also be used for training and research purposes. Monies in the Fund may be expended to support reasonable costs associated with the administration of the Fund, which must not exceed five percent of the total annual deposits into the Fund.
(e) Any Funds appropriated, expended, or distributed from the Opioid Abatement Trust Fund must be spent in accordance with the terms of any verdict, judgment, compromise, or settlement in or out of court, of any case brought pursuant to the Virgin Islands’ Consumer Protection Law and the Virgin Islands’ Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act or any other law relating to the manufacturing, marketing, distributing, promoting or dispensing of opioids.
(f) Monies in the Fund must be used for prospective purposes and may not be used to reimburse expenditures incurred prior to the effective date of this section.
(g) Monies in the Fund must be disbursed to both governmental and not for-profit non-governmental entities.
(h) Fund disbursements must be made by the Commissioner of Finance upon the approval of the Opioid Trust Fund Committee. The Commissioner shall adhere to the Committee’s decisions regarding disbursement of monies from the Fund so long as the disbursement is a permissible expenditure under this section. The Commissioner of Finance’s role to distribute the monies as approved by the Committee shall be ministerial and not discretionary.