Houghton County authorizes participation in Teva, Allergan, CVS and Walmart opioid settlements

The Houghton County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved Resolution No. 2023-09 on April 11, authorizing the county to enter participation agreements in proposed national opioid settlements with Teva, Allergan, CVS and Walmart and to execute a Michigan state-subdivision allocation agreement that would allocate settlement proceeds on a 50/50 basis between participating local governments and the State of Michigan.

Administrator Elizabeth Bjorn told the board the action was needed to preserve the county’s legal and financial participation in the settlements. The resolution summarizes settlement terms described by the national negotiating committees: multi-year payments by defendants (for example, Teva up to $3.34 billion, Allergan up to $2.02 billion, CVS $4.9 billion, Walmart $2.74 billion under the proposed schedules) and programmatic commitments including marketing and promotion limits for manufacturers and diversion-prevention and reporting obligations for distributors.

The resolution notes Houghton County previously executed participation agreements for distributor and Janssen settlements and authorizes continued participation and execution of a Michigan State-Subdivision Agreement allocating settlement proceeds on a 50/50 basis to participating local governments and the State. The board recorded the motion moved by Commissioner Glenn Anderson and seconded by Commissioner Roy Britz and approved the resolution by roll call (Anderson, Britz, Tikkanen, Keranen, Janssen YES; 5–0). The resolution references the national-opioid-settlement materials available at https://nationalopioidsettlement.com/ and directs county officials to execute the participation documents as presented.

Next steps: county staff are authorized to sign the participation agreements and related state-subdivision agreements; the board also recorded continued participation in earlier distributor and Janssen settlement agreements.