By Greg Jordan
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
PRINCETON, W.Va. — Two Mercer County rescue squads were presented $100,000 apiece Tuesday from opioid lawsuit settlement funds awarded to the Mercer County Commission.
In July, the Princeton Rescue Squad and the Bluefield Rescue Squad requested a total of $460,000 from the county’s opioid fund so each could buy a new ambulance. Representatives of both squads cited the high cost of answering calls involving overdose victims.
| Watch now: Unlocking opioid settlement funding for public safety agencies
The county has around $2.3 million in opioid funds. Some of that money has been spent on creating new quarters for the sheriff’s department and renovating the county’s day report center. Commissioner Greg Puckett said the county hopes to keep $1.5 million in the fund so it can generate interest for future expenses.
During the commission’s meeting Tuesday, Puckett moved to present each rescue squad $100,000 towards new ambulances, then give each squad $50,000 a year for the next three years. This money will come from the opioid fund.
Puckett said this plan means the fund would not get depleted at one time and reduce the interest money the fund could earn.
Commissioner Brian Blankenship said that while county had leeway on how American Rescue Plan money was spent, the opioid fund is under a specific memorandum of understanding which regulates how that money is used.
“This particular fund will be heavily audited, so we have to have those justifications in place to say these equipment purchases for our first responder agencies are specifically helping to fight the opioid epidemic that’s in Mercer County,” Blankenship said. “So I wanted to provide a clarification to the public that this is indeed what it is being used for so we are justify the expense to the MOU of the opioid fund.”
Puckett said the commission was working on a resolution showing how opioid money is spent. If an auditor asks how an expenditure fit into the fund’s memorandum of understanding, that question can be readily answered.
“It will help a lot,” said Sean Cantrell. administrator of the Bluefield Rescue Squad. “Not to purchase an ambulance, but put it towards an ambulance and some equipment we can use to help fight opioids.”
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