After a hearing on drug overdoses was again canceled amid a public row between a Baltimore councilman and the mayor, council members assembled last week in City Hall with little fanfare to vote on an opioids-related bill.

The Baltimore City Council’s Budget and Appropriations Committee approved more than $14 million to community organizations and city agencies to help tackle Baltimore’s overdose crisis, which in recent years had become the worst ever in a major American city.

Despite some high-profile political clashes about how the city should be talking about overdoses, officials have quietly taken steps toward progress.

Mayor Brandon Scott’s office is creating a new system to oversee and allocate the money provided by pharmaceutical companies as restitution for their role in the city’s opioid crisis.

The City Council committee last week approved $10 million in funding for nonprofit organizations named in settlement agreements with the drug companies, and about $4 million to city departments to help oversee opioid restitution funds and other overdose response strategies. The funding decision still needs the approval of the full City Council.

If it passes, the money will begin to reach community organizations as early as April, and should be disbursed by July, according to city officials.

Last month, Scott swore in 20 members of a new Opioid Restitution Advisory Board, including city agency heads, public health experts and people intimately familiar with drug addiction and recovery. They will review grant applications and make recommendations for how to spend the rest of the money.

The city has also published draft plans on how it will reach out to the community to gather feedback and publish information about where the money should be spent. The public has until March 15 to weigh in on these plans.

But a public hearing to address the future of the city’s opioid strategy head-on has yet to materialize. That’s because since last year, many city leaders have abided by a near-blackout on public discussion of overdose response policy until the resolution of pending litigation.

Seven years ago, the city filed a lawsuit in state court against pharmaceutical companies, alleging they played a direct role in exacerbating the city’s opioid crisis. In November, a jury in the case ruled in favor of the city, which has so far secured $668.5 million, including settlements, as a result.

Maryland Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill is expected in the coming weeks to decide whether to award additional money — potentially billions more — as part of the case. Another hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

Acting on the advice of the city’s top attorney, Scott’s office has insisted that any public discussion of opioids to improve the city’s overall strategy should only come after the resolution of the lawsuit.

Councilman Mark Conway, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee, has several times run afoul of the Scott administration’s policy against discussing overdoses. Conway has twice called for public hearings — first in July and again last month — only to have them canceled by council leadership at the mayor’s behest.

Conway also introduced a bill that would require first responders to carry buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid addiction. But that effort clashed with the mayor’s office, which had been working with state regulators to change a rule that limits the types of emergency workers who can carry it.

The political spats followed reporting by The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times in May that revealed the city’s overdose death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly double that of any other large city. The joint investigation also found that the city’s overdose prevention strategy had stalled as officials became preoccupied with other crises.

Last year, the crisis showed early signs it may be abating. The city’s fatal overdose rate dropped about 30%, preliminary data from the state’s data dashboard shows, mirroring state and national declines in drug-related deaths. More than 700 people died in Baltimore in 2024, the lowest number since 2016, according to the state.

Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, chairwoman of the council’s Public Health and Environment Committee, said she plans to hold additional regular meetings about the opioid crisis, but only after the judge announces his decision.

“We don’t want to wait either. But we have to,” Porter said in an interview. “From my vantage point, it’s not necessarily shielding what is happening in the city. It’s making sure we don’t disrupt the legal process and possibly reducing the funds we get.”

Until then, Porter has scheduled hearings on the topic of behavioral health more broadly, the first of which will take place Wednesday.

A city-led task force has also held meetings about overdoses. The task force had only met twice in 2022 and three times in 2023, according to the Banner/Times investigation. But after the report, the group was revamped with new leadership, made a commitment to meet four times a year, and published detailed agendas to outline its work to the public.

City records show that during the task force’s last meeting in December, members discussed data trends and planned to hold focus groups and town halls for a needs assessment that will help inform a strategy to reduce overdoses. On the agenda for an upcoming public meeting this month are updates on health department programs and state bills.

The Banner requested an interview to learn more about the group and its recent work, but the city is still remaining largely mum.

“We are not commenting on this due to pending litigation,” health department spokeswoman Blair Adams said in an email.