Where Are Local Shares of the National Opioid Settlement Going?

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Over the next 18 years, state and local governments across the country will receive more than $50 billion from settlements with opioid manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to compensate for the harms of the opioid epidemic. Texas' share of the settlement is roughly $3 billion. As the funds start to trickle in this year, how much are Austin and Travis County going to receive, and how are we going to use it?

To guide those decisions, 130 harm reduction activists around the country, including the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, which has worked closely with Travis County on its opioid crisis response, signed on last month to a road map for policymakers on how to distribute the funds. It calls on local officials to invest in non-carceral solutions to the crisis, including access to medically assisted treatment programs to treat addiction, syringe exchanges, access to naloxone, and the establishment of overdose prevention centers. THRA and other orgs have also made a point of including social services in their demands, such as housing and support services for drug users, as addiction often overlaps with homelessness and poverty. The road map also urges officials to address the consequences of failed punitive policies with second-chance employment, recovery-to-work programs, and the expungement of past criminal convictions. Crucially, it emphasizes supporting community-based organizations doing the work, noting that many public funding streams are inaccessible due to "onerous applications and reporting processes."

Travis County has received $1.4 million and Austin has received $1.5 million this summer from the settlement. The city has thus far only allocated $75,000 of its share, from Austin Public Health to EMS, and that covers the cost of 800 overdose response kits, each including two doses of Narcan, to be distributed to community-­based organizations. EMS will provide additional kits to businesses that have had more than one overdose on-site within the past year. The city also added one full-time position for communication and harm reduction strategies earlier this summer.

Since its public health crisis declaration in 2022 and subsequent work with THRA, the county has more existing apparatuses in place for fund distribution. Last month, commissioners voted to distribute $860,000 in settlement funds to harm reduction programs. $175,000 of that went toward Narcan; $350,000 went toward a two-year contract with Communities for Recovery for two peer recovery specialists; $300,000 went toward a pair of two-year contracts for methadone services; and $35,000 went toward syringe collection services at six locations around the county.

Commissioners also put up to $575,000 toward reimbursing previous opioid-related expenses – something THRA and the road map have discouraged – but committed the same amount of the county's own money to additional services. Another $41,000 from the settlement will be moved to the county's allocated reserves to support any future settlement fund requirements.

Statewide, the government continues to push punitive solutions to the crisis. Upon this session's failure to pass a bill legalizing fentanyl test strips and its passage of House Bill 6, the drug-induced homicide law that allows prosecution of drug dealers as murderers, THRA issued the following statement: "By refusing to prioritize common-sense public health interventions–like fentanyl test strips and other drug checking tools, harm reduction centers, safe use supplies–the Governor refuses to prioritize the lives of Texans."

"We still have a long way to go in Austin and Travis County, but funding harm reduction services, treatment, and working with the community to identify needs is commendable," wrote THRA's Cate Graziani in the release. "We urge the State and local governments to invest in non-police responses and evidence-based solutions that are proven to save lives."