Foley council joins state, local governments in Endo settlement

By Jessica Vaughn
Posted 12/27/21

FOLEY - The Foley City Council voted to join the State of Alabama and other local governments as participants in the Endo settlement. The city is expecting to receive approximately $33,000 from the …

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Foley council joins state, local governments in Endo settlement

Posted

FOLEY - The Foley City Council voted to join the State of Alabama and other local governments as participants in the Endo settlement. The city is expecting to receive approximately $33,000 from the settlement.
“Endo Pharmaceuticals is one of the companies involved in the opioid crisis, and this is the first of what’s likely to be upwards of 10 or 12 settlements or bankruptcies that will come our way,” said City Administrator Mike Thompson. “Endo Pharmaceuticals is settling for about $25 million to the State of Alabama, and there’s a mathematical formula that they’ve used to distribute those dollars. The way it’s set up is about 60% state and 40% is distributed to local governmental agencies.”
Thompson said the amount of funds a governmental agency will receive is based off of federal CDC numbers showing the number of opioid deaths and the amount of people struggling with opioid use within the local governmental areas. The ratio will not be used for pharmacies going into bankruptcy. Instead, a bankruptcy judge will determine how the distribution for those pharmacies will go.
“Uses for these funds is limited,” Thompson said. “You can’t use it on just anything, it has to be used to address the causes of the opioid epidemic.”
He said he expects to see city first responders and emergency personnel bring proposals forward to the council at a later date on ways to use the funds.
“We would recommend that we put this money into an account and to explore the ways that it could be used,” said Mayor Ralph Hellmich. “These funds could accumulate over time, so let’s put it into an account and we’re going to talk to other entities, the county and some of the other cities, and see what their possible uses are to explore the best way to give a recommendation to the council.”