How County Will Spend $9 Million in Drug Settlement Funds

Narcan nasal spray in a harm reduction vending machine. Photo taken Aug. 12, 2024 by Graham Kilmer

The Milwaukee County Board signed off the latest plan for spending $9 million from the county’s settlement with opioid companies.

County Executive David Crowley‘s administration proposed a third round of spending from a landmark settlement with companies that played a role in the opioid epidemic. The funds will support programming intended to combat the opioid epidemic, including public outreach, residential treatment, research and harm reduction supplies.

“My administration continues to deploy opioid settlement dollars across Milwaukee County,” Crowley said in a statement. “These upstream investments are proving to be effective, but we know there’s more work to do in expanding substance use prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery efforts.”

Since 2021, pharmaceutical companies, drug distributors and corporate pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens agreed to $111 million in settlement payments with Milwaukee County to be paid over a period of 18 years. The settlements were the result of a large, multi-district litigation effort that brought together claims against the companies from across the country.

The county started deploying the funding in 2023. Some of those programs will receive funding once again through the latest round, like a program distributing harm reduction supplies across the community and a regranting program providing resources to local community organizations working on substance abuse and addiction.

“We are seeing promising trends and look forward to continuing our prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery work, including ensuring residents have access to harm reduction supplies, targeted community outreach, and collaboration with community partners,” said Shakita LaGrant-McClain, Executive Director of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

The new round of funding will also pay for staff positions in the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner‘s Office. The opioid epidemic has caused many drug overdose deaths, which are forensically investigated by the medical examiner’s office. The funding will cover an additional forensic pathologist, medicolegal death investigator and forensic chemist.

The county is also continuing the distribution of harm reduction supplies through vending machines, providing medication like narcan, which can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, for free in areas with high rates of overdoses. In all there are seven programs that had been funded.

Programs Funded Through Settlement

• Outreach to older adults and persons with disabilties, including providing harm reduction supplies
• Harm reduction supplies
• Community regranting to local non-profits working on prevention, treatment, recovery and harm reduction
• A new Prevention Integration Manager at DHHS, coordinating prevention efforts and overseeing settlement programs
• Subsidizing residential substance use disorder treatment for up to 87 beds across the county
• Medical examiner staff
• Expanding a harm reduction data project by adding new data sets to explore other health factors related to opioid abuse