MONROE — Green County officials are working to determine how best to spend the latest settlement money related to lawsuits filed against drug makers and sellers who contributed to the opiate epidemic here.
Rather than one large settlement, officials said, the county is seeing multiple payments from various lawsuits, the latest being a more than $680,000 payment.
“This settlement was with two manufacturers: Teva & Allergan, and three national pharmacy chains: Walgreens, Wal-Mart, and CVS,” said Dan Williams, Green County’s director of human services. “The exact dollar amount that Green County will receive is unknown at this time, as the settlement includes incentive funds for the state if a majority of municipalities that were litigating participate in the settlement agreement and certain time frames are met.”
The County will put 20% in an attorney escrow account, he said. However, officials are still hopeful that the work of the county’s attorneys on the settlement will be eventually reimbursed by the national attorney’s fund, leaving more money for programs to prevent and treat opioid addiction in the area.
Along with Williams, RoAnn Warden, Public Health Director; and Sheriff Jeff Skatrud will be working together to propose how to best use the funding — as officials believe those specific county departments were the most impacted by the opioid epidemic.
Last year, the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) announced final approval of an agreement with the nation’s three major pharmaceutical distributors (Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen) and Johnson & Johnson. Payments from the distributors will continue for 18 years. Payments from Johnson & Johnson, meanwhile, will continue for nine years.
“The funds that Wisconsin DOJ helped secure from opioid companies will aid communities across Wisconsin in combating the opioid epidemic,” said Attorney General Josh Kaul, in a statement on the issue. “Input from those impacted by the epidemic will help maximize the good that these funds can do for Wisconsinites.”
Wisconsin is expecting more than $400 million in total funding from the settlements. The state will get 30 percent of fund, while counties and localities that signed on to the opioid litigation receive the remaining 70 percent.
The county is continuing to study the issue.
“In addition, the Human Services Board commissioned the Southwestern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to conduct an Opioid Needs Assessment for Green County,” said Williams. “At this point we are awaiting additional information in regards to when we will receive the funding over the next 15 years as well as looking at the community’s needs around prevention, treatment, and recovery before we make our initial recommendations.”
Funding from the latest settlement, Williams said, will be “pooled with the funds we are receiving from the opioid distributor’s settlement, and the National Opioid Abatement Trust II, which was formed by the Mallinckrodt bankruptcy to fund opioid abatement activities over the next 17 years.”
More than 106,000 people in the U.S. died from drug-involved overdose in 2021, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids, according to the National Institutes of Health. From 1999-2020, more than 564,000 people died from an overdose involving any opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids, says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And in 2021, the latest full year of data available, there were 1,427 deaths in Wisconsin related to opioids.