Westmoreland County to distribute opioid settlement funds

Westmoreland County Commissioners are expected to award grants to three municipalities this week with money from the national opioid abuse settlements.

North Huntingdon is slated to receive nearly $105,000, while Rostraver and Lower Burrell each will receive $62,832 to operate drug prevention and education programs through municipal police departments.

The funds are being doled out from the county’s latest installment — $1.6 million — in the deal with drug manufacturers and distributors that ended a series of lawsuits that claimed they caused and allowed opioid abuse to spread throughout the United States. In total, the county will receive about $48 million of Pennsylvania’s $2.2 billion share. The money is being paid to the county over the next 16 years.

North Huntingdon police Chief Robert Rizzo said the township will use its allocation to pay for drug education and prevention programs in the Norwin School District.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, which began at the start of classes in August and this year is targeting fourth graders, is being paid for through the county’s opioid settlement funds.

“We had a plan ready to go, and this will cover the salaries of our DARE officer, materials and training. We look at this as a long-term investment in the community,” Rizzo said.

Rostraver police Chief Scott Sokol said the opioid settlement funds will be used for community prevention and education. That includes a newly created program, Take Note, that will allow township police to engage local community groups, churches and other civic organizations about the ongoing opioid epidemic.

“Without these funds, we can’t reach out into the community,” Sokol said. “We want to have positive energy out there about our opioid awareness programs.”

In addition to the municipal allocations, commissioners said they will award Lost Dreams Awakening, Faces and Voice of Recovery of Western Pa. and Sage’s Army Inc. with $150,000 grants. Hamilton said those agencies are the lone community recovery programs based in Westmoreland County that offer peer support services.

The Westmoreland County Drug and Alcohol Commission will receive $375,000 for community outreach, distribution of Narcan and fentanyl testing strips, prevention services and case management.

Lower Burrell police Chief John Marhefka said the city’s opioid settlement money will be used for community education and prevention, including the DARE program that focuses on fifth and sixth grades, and a new extension of the program at the high school.

It also will be used for other community programs that focus on prevention and community awareness for drug education, such as the student and citizen police academy programs, and a new prevention program, 6 Steps to Sanity, designed to assist people who have addiction in their family, Marhefka said.

“The Lower Burrell police are always being progressive and proactive for our community,” Marhefka said.

They were the only three municipalities to submit plans for the opioid funds, according to Westmoreland County Solicitor Melissa Guiddy.

Westmoreland received $2.5 million in 2022 and, according to a plan finalized last summer, most of those funds will be used to pay for internal programs operated by the county through the courts, its human services department and services provided by the newly formed Department of Community Relations and Prevention, which replaced the Drug Overdose Task Force.

“We’re spending a lot of money to address the symptoms of opioid abuse. With this money, we want to be addressing the overdose epidemic, and this will allow us to get to the kids before they start using,” said Westmoreland County Human Services Director Rob Hamilton.

County commissioners earmarked $691,000 this year for the county’s 11 largest municipalities: Derry, Greensburg, Hempfield, Lower Burrell, Mt. Pleasant, Murrysville, New Kensington, North Huntingdon, Penn Township, Rostraver and Unity.

Westmoreland County has been battling the opioid epidemic for more than a decade.

From 2014 through 2017, the number of local fatal overdoses more than doubled. According to the Westmoreland County Coroner’s Office, a record 193 drug-related deaths were reported in 2017.

After two years of declines, the number of fatal overdoses increased and 168 deaths were recorded in 2021. There were 118 overdose deaths reported last year, and, through October, 57 fatal overdoses were confirmed in 2023, according to the Coroner’s Office.

“This is huge,” Hamilton said of the opioid settlement funds. “This is one of the biggest things to come down in a long time to deal with overdoses.”

Staff writer Kellen Stepler contributed to this report.