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Sheriff asks fiscal court to use opioid-settlement funds for a free county app with treatment resources
Summary
Sheriff Dennis asked the Grant County Fiscal Court for opioid settlement funds to acquire a sheriff-branded mobile app offering treatment resources, maps and alerts; officials asked about usage analytics and cost differences between hosted and full-ownership options.
Sheriff Dennis told the Grant County Fiscal Court on June 23 that the county had about 26 drug-overdose calls in the previous 12 months and asked the court to use opioid settlement money to purchase a sheriff's mobile app that would provide opioid-treatment resources, facility maps, phone numbers and emergency alerts.
"So what I'm asking for is some opioid settlement funds to build an app... it would be the sheriff's app, which would be available on Apple and Google and it'd be ad free and it's also free to the public," Sheriff Dennis said, describing features that would include incident updates, push notifications for road closures, golden/Amber alerts and a homepage icon linking to opioid-treatment information.
Court members questioned how the county would measure use of the app. Magistrate Riley asked whether the vendor would provide usage statistics and whether the sheriff would be able to report on citizen uptake. The sheriff said the vendor offers a full-ownership version with analytics — which he said would cost about $17,000 — and a hosted/licensed version with lower recurring fees; the transcript also records an unclear three-year figure and a quoted annual fee of $1,800. The court did not take a formal vote on the request during the meeting.
Sheriff Dennis said the vendor's estimate was valid through July 22 and that the app could also be used for non-opioid functions such as wanted-person alerts and traffic/road-closure updates. Officials noted that opioid-settlement funds are allowable for treatment, prevention and harm reduction activities.
What happens next: The court discussed the proposal and asked budget-related questions but did not authorize spending at the June 23 meeting; if the court elects to fund the project, officials should confirm the exact vendor costs, ownership/analytics options and any procurement steps.
