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Commissioners pause on full opioid settlement disbursement pending program review
Summary
The opioid collaborative submitted funding requests for programs; commissioners expressed concern about long-term sustainability, outcome measures and allocations across prevention, treatment, housing and harm reduction, and agreed to revisit allocations before finalizing.
Scotland County commissioners reviewed proposed allocations of local opioid settlement funds on June 2 and agreed to delay final approval while staff and the opioid collaborative refine program-level outcomes and sustainability assumptions.
County staff presented current receipts and projections from national opioid settlements: approximately $1.6 million already received with an estimated additional $2.1 million anticipated over future years, though commissioners and staff warned the total is a moving target because multiple companies and pending lawsuits affect final amounts.
The county’s opioid collaborative had submitted a set of funding requests totaling roughly $566,000 for the next year; program requests included school-based prevention, treatment staffing, DSS-run initiatives and Narcan distribution. Commissioners raised repeated concerns about allocating settlement funds across the spectrum of needs — prevention and education, treatment (inpatient and outpatient), housing for people in recovery, drug court and naloxone distribution — and requested more rigorous outcome measures before committing multi-year staffing expenses.
"This is money from heaven," one commissioner said, urging that allocations be driven by measurable outcomes such as lives saved, reductions in ER overdoses and successful treatment completions rather than only program headcount. Commissioners noted Scotland County has among the highest opioid-related ER visit rates in the state and said that strengthened metrics and a clearer plan for housing and drug-court capacity should guide funding decisions.
The board did not finalize disbursement at the June 2 meeting. Staff said agencies can still be reimbursed for eligible expenses and that the county will revisit the collaborative's requests at a budget meeting later in June after additional review.
