PHOENIX — A judge late Thursday blocked the state from seizing opioid settlement funds, at least for the time being. Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Mary Cronin temporarily barred the Department of Administration from complying with a provision in the budget to immediately transfer $75 million from the settlement account controlled by Attorney General Kris Mayes to the state treasurer. She will hear further arguments on July 3.
That order came despite arguments by the governor’s office that those those dollars are needed to ensure the state ends the current fiscal year on June 30 with a positive cash balance. Separately, Cronin also prohibited another scheduled transfer of $40 million that the budget called to be moved on July 5. Thursday’s order does not resolve the fight.
That will require more hearings and a possible trial. But Cronin said Mayes presented enough evidence to her on Thursday to convince her the money should be kept where it is for the time being: in the control of the Attorney General’s Office. “Plaintiff (Mayes) is likely to succeed on the merits of her claims because the diversion of $115 million from their approved uses .
.. would be illegal,’’ the commissioner wrote.
“If the funds are illegally diverted from their approved uses, Arizona and its citizens are likely to suffer irreparable harm,’’ Cronin wrote. That, she said, is because the funds won’t be used to abate the opioid epidemic. And then there’s the chance that .