SARASOTA — Sarasota County plans to spend the millions of dollars in revenue it will receive from the settlement of lawsuits against opioid manufacturers dealing with the effects of the abuse of those substances.
Settlement proceeds are going into three pots, Human Services Manager Kim Kutch told County Commissioners last week: county, regional and state.
There’s more than $1.3 million in the county fund, to be budgeted in the coming fiscal year, with more than $4.7 million in the regional fund the county can ask the Central Florida Behavioral Health Network which is overseeing the money, to allocate for local uses, she said.
Payments may run for as long as 18 years, though they’re expected to diminish over time, Kutch said.
The County Commission voted unanimously to approve staff recommendations to spend more than $400,000 to expand medication-assisted services in the county jail; another $209,000 to enlarge reentry services; and $2.7 million to make the Community Offender Rehabilitative Treatment pilot program permanent.
“It’s money well spent to try to correct the wrongs of the past,” Commissioner Mark Smith said.
With the additional money, the MAT program will be able to serve 25 more inmates by hiring another nurse and a certified addictions counselor, and the reentry program will add another navigator, she said.
Commissioner Ron Cutsinger welcomed the reentry program expansion.
“It’s one thing to get people back out in the street, but boy, they need help getting back into life,” he said.
The CORT pilot program has been running for three years on American Rescue Plan Act funds that expire Sept. 30, Kutch said. The opioid settlement money will be used to establish it as RESTORE — Rehabilitation, Education and Support Toward Offender Reintegration, she said.
Under it, low-level male felony offenders with a history of chronic substance abuse who could benefit from a residential setting may qualify for a 120-day intensive program at Lightshare Behavioral Wellness & Recovery Inc.
They would be in a secure, lock-down facility with clinical and support staff 24/7/365 and a wide range of services available, including substance abuse treatment, MAT and counseling.
Preference would be given to men with an opioid addiction, she said.
RESTORE would also have a 30-day program for inmates waiting for placement in long-term residential treatment, she said.
Based on the results from CORT, RESTORE is expected to have several benefits besides helping inmates with substance abuse problems overcome their addictions.
As a diversion program, it would help relieve overcrowding in the jail, which has an operational capacity of 836 but an average daily census of more than 1,000, an outline of the program says.
Based on an annual anticipated diversion of 100 inmates whom it costs $118.53 per day to house in the jail, RESTORE would save more than $1.2 million in its first year, it says.
And if the program matches the CORT rate of 72% of inmates who complete the program not offending again, another $900,000 would be saved in housing and booking costs, according to the outline.
Lightshare’s plans to open a new addictions receiving facility in 2026 will be an opportunity for the county to consider creating a RESTORE program for female offenders, it stated.
The challenge in the future, Smith said, will be to figure out how to continue to fund the programs when the settlement money runs out.
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