The remaining $133,175 of the city of Warsaw’s restricted opioid funds budgeted for 2024 will be donated to the Kosciusko Coalition on Drug Education (K-CODE).
Warsaw Police Department Chief Scott Whitaker on Friday requested authorization from the Board of Public Works and Safety for the WPD, on behalf of the city, to designate those remaining funds to K-CODE.
“K-CODE provides funds to Kosciusko Cares, Live Well Kosciusko, LITE, Serenity House, Bowen Center, Warsaw-Wayne CARES, Warsaw PD, Fellowship Missions, our local drug unit NET 43 and a number of other entities,” Whitaker said.
Heidi Blake, K-CODE coordinator, explained that all 92 Indiana counties are mandated by state statute to have a Local Coordinating Council (LCC), with K-CODE being that LCC in Kosciusko County. She said K-CODE meets once a month on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 11:30 a.m., except for July and December, at Papa Vino’s.
“It’s just a great opportunity for community leaders to come together and talk about issues surrounding substance use in our community,” she said. “We are required by that state statute to cover three areas. So we cover prevention and education, which is personally really important to me; intervention and treatments; and law enforcement and justice.”
On average, Blake said there are about 30 people who attend the monthly meetings.
“The most exciting part about the meetings to me are the before and after. So to see community collaboration, and to see law enforcement talking to community organizations that are providing resources in our community,” she said.
Blake thanked Whitaker, WPD Capt. Paul Heaton and Deputy Chief Bryan Sherwin for being “an amazing part of our group and they bring so much knowledge and experience surrounding drug use in our area. So I really just want to thank them for all that they’ve done.”
She stated the state really would like local municipalities to follow the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Five Guiding Principles for the Use of Funds from the Opioid Litigation. The opioid settlements refer to offers from opioid manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies to settle various lawsuits against their companies across the U.S.
The first of the five principles is spending the money to save lives, “which is ultimately our goal is to save lives,” Blake said. The other four are use evidence to guide spending, invest in youth prevention, focus on racial equity and develop a fair and transparent process for deciding where to spend the funding.
“Oftentimes, prevention is not at the table when it comes to the opioid settlement distributions, so that’s something that I’m really passionate about and is very important to me,” Blake said.
Councilwoman Diane Quance asked if the coalition listens to requests when deciding where to spend the funds. Blake responded that they take grant applications and K-CODE has a board that works through those and then distributes the funds.
“We do work hand-in-hand with the county council, but ultimately it is the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute who oversees what the LCCs do. It’s not the county council, but we do work directly with the county council and the county auditor’s office,” Blake said.
Board of Works member George Clemens asked if the opioid funds donated by the city will mainly be used in the Warsaw community.
“Yes,” Blake said. “My suggestion would be part of that requirement would be that they do cover Warsaw area, and their services that they provide. And the majority of our partners do. We do have a few that maybe just provide services in Syracuse or something like that, but a majority of our partners do provide services in Warsaw, and that would be my suggestion.”
Whitaker said there are four categories that K-CODE is able to designate funds for, and grant applications are restricted to 25% in each of those categories. However, the donation from city will not be as restricted.
Agreeing with Whitaker, Blake said, “The funds that we receive through the LCCs actually come from - if there’s an individual that is arrested in Kosciusko County for a drug- or alcohol-related offense and they are found guilty or they plead guilty and part of their plea agreement is that they pay alcohol counter-measure fees or drug interdiction fees, 75% of those fees come to K-CODE to be used right here in Kosciusko County. The other 25% goes to the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute at the state level for initiatives. So, again, my recommendation would be that it is evently divided among those three areas and not just a focus on treatment and recovery, which is very, very important. I want to stress that I firmly believe in supporting people in recovery and treatment, very important. But these other areas are equally important.”
Mayor Jeff Grose said the donation was a good thing to do. Clemens made a motion to approve the donation of the funds, Quance seconded it and it was approved 3-0.