News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cumberland County beginning the process to spend its opioid abatement settlement money.
The county received some $294,694. County Mayor Allen Foster said the state has provided a document that shows general areas where the money can be spent.
“Or opioid abatement and trying to get people to not use it in the first place,” Foster said. “There are various things those can be spent on but the state has not told us exactly what to spend the money on yet, but the state has given us some general guidelines, so.”
Foster said another option can be putting the money into the general funds depending on how many autopsies were performed. He said last year in Cumberland County 39 people died from an overdose.
Foster said they are having specific groups look at the best practice for where to spend the money. He said he wants to do something that will have the biggest impact on the most amount of people.
“My thing is that I don’t want to do something small, I want to do something that’s actually going to impact real people,” Foster said. “So hopefully we’ll take our time with it and make wise choices to use this money coming in to benefit the most people that we possibly can.”
