Montgomery County has joined a nationwide $26 billion settlement of lawsuits filed against manufacturers and distributors of opioids.
The Board of Commissioners voted Monday for the county to receive a portion of the settlement funds being doled out to communities. The county won’t know how large check is until Indiana determines how much funding they get to distribute, which depends on how many communities opt-in.
A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general reached the agreement with the nation’s three biggest drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson in July, releasing the companies from legal liability in the nation’s opioid crisis. The payments will be made over the next 18 years.
The funding must be used for remediation services such as overdose medication, recovery services and prevention programs.
“Obviously, there’s several departments here who have been affected by this,” county attorney Dan Taylor told the commissioners.
If the commissioners had voted to opt out of its stake, the county could have filed its own lawsuit against the companies in hopes of receiving a larger settlement. But since the agreement is so large and suing opioid makers and distributors is complex, Taylor recommended opting in.
In other business, the commissioners:
• Opened bids for culvert replacement projects on C.R. 700N and 950S. Brazil-based Conexco Inc. submitted the sole bids for both projects for a total amount of $563,000. The county engineer will recommend awarding the bid at a future meeting.
• Opened annual highway department bids from numerous companies for gas, fuel, dust control materials and other materials. The bids were taken under advisement.
