The West Virginia First Foundation will no longer receive funds from the state’s opioid settlements, according to a Tuesday news release from Attorney General J.B. McCuskey.

Instead, the portion of funds previously sent to the First Foundation for distribution — 72.5% of all money earned through settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors — will now be sent directly to the state’s general revenue fund to be used by the Legislature and disbursed among localities.

Details regarding the change to the funding mechanism were scarce on Wednesday, but McCuskey said in a news release that the end goal is to put more money into local governments’ coffers to spend as they see fit in confronting the state’s ongoing drug and overdose epidemic.

“As the former state auditor and a former legislator, I have worked with both the Legislature and our local governments and am confident that they know best what their communities need,” McCuskey said. “I am excited to see the thoughtful and effective ways that my friends in both local governments and the Legislature use this increased funding to better the lives of their constituents.”

Neither McCuskey or a representative from the First Foundation were available for interviews before publication Wednesday. Both the attorney general’s office and the First Foundation, however, agreed to later interviews.

A spokesperson for McCuskey said that the decision to change the funding mechanism for opioid settlement dollars will take effect in 30 days. Once in effect, the memorandum of understanding that was created several years ago to outline how the funds will be disbursed — as well as the approved uses for them — will be void.

The memorandum of understanding was created under now-Gov. Patrick Morrisey while he served as attorney general. It came from a court order that directed the state to implement guidelines and policies for how settlement dollars would be allocated, as well as how the First Foundation — which was founded by the Legislature in 2023 — would work.

The document dictated the set up of the First Foundation, including the establishment of an expert panel, the makeup of the nonprofit’s board of directors and more.

Under the MOU, money earned from settlements was shared between the First Foundation — receiving 72.5% of funds — and local governments, which saw 25.5% of all funds, which were further split between hundreds of localities based on an equation calculating the impact of the opioid epidemic in their area. The remaining 3% of funds were sent to the state to be held in escrow to cover incurred expenses.

Without the MOU, that local share calculation no longer stands, meaning it’s unclear how much money localities are guaranteed to receive in the future. The change also means, however, that there will be fewer expenses — like attorney fees — that previously chipped into the local windfalls.

Moving forward with these changes, the First Foundation will likely operate similar to other nonprofits, setting its own policies and guidelines. The West Virginia code section that created the First Foundation would still stand as law unless the Legislature repeals it. That code mandates that “the operations of the foundation and the entities it supervises are subject to audit and review by the Attorney General.”

According to a June financial report from the West Virginia First Foundation — the most recent that is publicly available — the private nonprofit has about $379 million in the bank. In June alone, it earned nearly $923,000 on investments from the money it already held.

The nonprofit held its third official grant cycle in June, where it plans to give out 18 grants totaling $9.87 million over a three-year period. Recipients for those grants will be announced by the end of this year.

To date, the First Foundation has allocated nearly $40 million in grant funds to organizations across the state working in the substance use disorder field.

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