Rowan County outlines 18-year opioid settlement plan, reports naloxone distribution and outreach progress

Alyssa Harris, public-health staff, told the Rowan County Board of Commissioners on Jan. 6, 2025, that the county is working from an 18-year plan funded by the opioid settlement and that Rowan County—s total award is roughly $28,000,000 and is "front loaded," meaning larger payments arrive earlier in the funding timeline.

Harris summarized the county—s approach and the five settlement strategies the county selected for fiscal 2023–24: collaborative strategic planning, recovery support services, naloxone distribution, a post-overdose response team (PORT), and harm-reduction services. She said the board-authorized budget for those strategies was $523,087 for the past fiscal year and reported that the county spent $397,144 (about 75%) of that allocation during the year.

Harris and Haley Edwards, the program manager for the project, provided activity and outcome figures. Harris said the public-health-led activities served 854 individuals, distributed 2,512 naloxone kits, and recorded 957 harm-reduction training interactions during the reporting period. She said recovery-support contacts included 32 people identified with opioid-use disorder; 18 of those were referred to addiction treatment and eight were referred to employment or housing services. Harris also said the county recorded about 1,366 referrals to the post-overdose response team following overdose reversals and that 110 people accepted direct outreach from peer support.

Edwards gave additional operational results and comparisons to 2023: she said EMS reported about 170 fewer overdose calls in 2024 compared with 2023, the county distributed roughly 2,700 naloxone kits and recorded 224 reversals connected to distributed kits, and emergency-department visits tied to overdose were down roughly 60 visits in November 2024 versus November 2023. Edwards also said fentanyl-positive overdose deaths in September 2024 were 30%–50% lower than reported in September 2023.

Both presenters described oversight and reporting requirements: the county—s settlement implementation and annual impact report are reviewed by multiple state and technical partners, including the North Carolina Department of Justice (NCDOJ) under the settlement memorandum of agreement, UNC Chapel Hill and a North Carolina county technical assistance team. Harris said those partners "take a very fine tooth comb over these funds." She emphasized fiscal caution to preserve funding across the plan's 18-year horizon and said the opioid funds have helped the county leverage additional federal and philanthropic grants, including SAMHSA and other awards.

Harris also reported results from a community input survey conducted in October 2024: 57 responses identified the top barriers to accessing treatment as cost, transportation, lack of information on how to access services, and stigma. Respondents prioritized 24/7 detox access, low-barrier and low-cost treatment options, recovery housing and employment support as services the community needs.

What this means: County officials said the settlement funds have underwritten broad harm-reduction outreach, naloxone distribution and post-overdose outreach, and that early indicators show declines in some overdose-related measures compared with 2023. Staff cautioned that engagement rates remain uneven: of the roughly 1,366 post-overdose referrals, only 110 individuals accepted direct outreach during the report period.

Provenance: presentation and discussion began at transcript block around s=1679 (opioid settlement update) and continued through the presenters' remarks and Q&A ending around s=3049 (program statistics and community survey summary).