Davidson County answers questions about 6.6 million in Opioid Funds spending
Davidson County will have $6.6 million in opioid settlement funds this year for the treatment and prevention of opioid addiction, but so far, there isn’t a set plan of how that money will be spent.
The 2024-2025 county budget includes a third year installment of $1.6 million out of the $22.5 million allocated to Davidson County over the next 17 years. It is part of the $56 billion North Carolina received from the national opioid settlement lawsuit in 2021.
The Davidson County Opioid Settlement Fund Committee, which meets quarterly, includes representatives from organizations impacted by opioid addiction, including the health department, law enforcement, family services, emergency services, county government, elected officials and community partners involved in prevention and recovery.
Lillian Koontz, director of the Davidson County Health Department, told members of the Davidson County Board of Health during its meeting on Tuesday that although many counties have spent a lot of their opioid settlement funding, Davidson County has not.
Last year, the county approved $1.2 million toward the Medically-Assisted Treatment program at the Davidson County Jail, which includes a peer support program through DC Connect. The MAT program uses once a month medications administered at the jail, instead of transporting inmates to local treatment clinics weekly.
Koontz, who is on the DC opioid settlement committee, said instead of just turning the settlement dollars over to the health department or emergency services to spend, the county has chosen to engage in collaborative strategic planning focusing more on the prevention of opioid addiction. But that option comes with challenges.
“The opioid dollars are easy to spend on individuals that are opioid addicted; it is very hard to talk about programs that prevent opioid addiction because how do you measure prevention,” said Koontz. “It is so hard when you want to see data on who didn’t become opioid addicts.”
She said the committee discussed at its January meeting how the opioid settlement funds could be allocated to more community partners after a citzen asked for assistance to expand his work distributing Narcan in the area.
“We recognized that we have invited community partners to speak with this team but not really developed (how to) apply for it,” said Koontz.
She said she hopes there will be a further discussion during the March meeting of the opioid settlement fund committee on developing a process to apply for funding. Until then, the committee will continue to support the MAT program, while determining how to develop more early prevention resources.
“We want to help anyone who is currently addicted, absolutely, but the biggest bang for our opioid settlement dollars is preventing anyone from becoming opioid addicted,” said Koontz.
Counties are required to submit annual audits of the opioid settlement fund account to the state.
