Concord — An analysis by The Associated Press shows New Hampshire was slower than most other states in spending its first wave of emergency money from Congress to target the opioid crisis. But state officials said on Monday the numbers don’t accurately reflect the state’s payment system, and that contracts are in place accounting for nearly all of the funds.

New Hampshire was allocated $2.6 million in the first year of the 21st Century Cures Act, but spent just 23 percent, according to spending data AP obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request filed with federal health officials. That would put New Hampshire among 10 states, including Vermont, and U.S. territories that spent less than a quarter of their allotments. But state officials said the federal numbers don’t reflect that many contracts were paid after the federal reporting deadline.

“Because of how we pay things out, invoices come to us up to 45 days after the close of the month,” said Abby Shockley, senior policy analyst for substance use services at the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. “For example, one of our treatment projects is with the Department of Corrections. They invoice us quarterly, so depending on when a report is due to (the federal government), that’s not going to reflect the actual dollars.”

Shockley said the state has been allocated $6.5 million over two years, and has contracts in place covering $6.4 million. Of that, $1.7 million has been paid out, she said.

The AP found that states that expanded Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health overhaul spent more slowly, in part because with the insurance program already covering addiction treatment, they could go beyond the basics. Shockley agreed, saying state officials focused efforts on underserved, including pregnant women, those leaving jails and prisons and families involved with the state’s child protection agency.

“We used the opportunity with the initial Cures Act allocation to really fill gaps in services,” she said. “We invested in either a lot of expansion of existing programs to address target populations or in some instances, looked to evidence-based models in other states.”

Deaths due to synthetic opioids increased more than tenfold from 2013 to 2016 in New Hampshire, and the state had the second highest rate of opioid-related overdose deaths in the country that final year. The state also has seen a sharp increase in newborns diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome. A significant portion of the Cures Act funding is aimed at changing that.

The project brings the integrated care model used by Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Center for Addiction Recovery in Pregnancy and Parenting to practices around the state that want to develop their own treatment programs for pregnant and post-partum women.

“We think that pregnancy is a really unique window of opportunity to help women get engaged with treatment,” said Dr. Julia Frew, the center’s director.

Programs are up and running in Lebanon, Keene and Berlin, while programs in Dover, Bedford and Nashua are close, Frew said. Planning also is underway in Laconia and Littleton.

“Some of the OB practices already had some pieces of a treatment program, while others weren’t even screening pregnant women for substance use disorders,” she said. “Part of that was, sometimes it’s hard for an OB practice to screen for something if they have no resources to help if someone screens positive.”

Following the Cures Act funding, the federal government last month awarded New Hampshire the first installment of $45.8 million in additional grants to combat the opioid crisis. The state plans to use that money to create a regional hub-and-spoke system to help people struggling with addiction move along a pathway from recovery to self-sufficiency.