(The Center Square) – Gov. Phil Scott is disputing a civil liberties group’s claims that the state’s top health official illegally altered a report detailing how the state should spend opioid settlement money.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont on Thursday accused Health Commissioner Mark Levine of “unlawfully” removing a key recommendation of the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee, which had called for $2.6 million in spending a year to facilitate “safe injection” sites where addicts inject drugs under the supervision of medical workers.
The ACLU said in a letter to the state Department of Health that omission of the funding request in the panel’s final report violated both Vermont’s Open Meeting Law and the committee’s enabling legislation, calling it “an unlawful usurpation of the committee’s harm reduction mandate.”
Scott issued a statement saying the statutory process, which he said leaves budgetary decisions in the hands of the Department of Health,
Read more…
