New Jersey Opioid Settlement Funds Spent on Concerts and Bounce Houses

New Jersey's state, county and municipal governments collected more than $60 million in opioid settlement money during the fiscal year that ended June 30, and the spending reports released Thursday show that some of it paid for concerts, inflatable bounce houses, ice cream socials, dirt bike demonstrations, police canines, gym equipment for officers and a muscle car.

The reports, covering the millions of dollars the state is receiving through 2038 under national settlements with drug manufacturers, distributors and pharmacy chains, arrived with a fresh push for tighter rules on how the money can be used. Harm reduction advocates say the filings confirm what they have warned about for years: that a share of the funds meant to repair the damage of the overdose crisis is being absorbed by ordinary municipal spending.

"This money is an attempt to rectify that, and so using this funding for something other than expenditures that address the overdose crisis is an absolute disrespect and dishonor to the people we've lost and will lose," said Amanda Devecka-Rinear, executive director of the New Jersey Organizing Project.

What the reports show

The filings detail how the state, its 21 counties and more than 500 municipalities spent their allocations in fiscal 2026. Paramus put $4,200 toward a free opioid awareness concert. Garfield spent $2,600 on bounce houses, a DJ and microphone rentals for a three-hour "Let's Knock Out Opioid Use Together" event. Willingboro paid $12,400 for a "Summer In Motion" series of free food, games and recreation aimed at youth. Metuchen spent $3,000 on a BMX drug awareness program featuring dirt bikes, and Lodi spent $1,900 on a "Say No to Drugs" ice cream event.

Multiple towns directed settlement money to school graduation parties, summer camps, after-school programs and movie nights — expenditures described in the reports as prevention measures intended to keep young people occupied and away from drugs.

Gloucester County spent more than $71,000 on buses to carry elementary school students to after-school programs, with another $179,000 allocated under a two-year agreement with a transportation vendor. County officials said the primary focus was preventing opioid misuse. Somerset County spent $5,000 on "Paw of Hope," which provides temporary pet care for people entering recovery, and Edison earmarked $1 million for a three-year contract with a hospital for treatment and related services. Scores of police departments drew on the funds for officer salaries, training and conferences, wellness programs and drug-detection devices.

"Municipalities are sort of the worst offenders of using the funds very liberally to meet their needs," said Elizabeth Burke-Beaty, founder of the Ocean County-based Sea Change Recovery Community and Harm Reduction Center. "Expenditures are done under the guise of 'prevention.'"

The rules the money is supposed to follow

New Jersey is receiving about $1.1 billion from the national opioid settlements, roughly half of it going directly to towns and counties. The funds are not supposed to pay for law enforcement measures. Under the 2021 settlement agreement, a 2022 state attorney general's memorandum and a 2023 state law, the money is meant for prevention, treatment and outreach for people caught up in the epidemic.

National settlement terms require that at least 85 percent of payments go to opioid remediation, a category broad enough to include naloxone distribution, medication for people who are uninsured, warm handoffs from emergency care into treatment, prevention and education. New Jersey, unlike some states, has no specific prohibition on using the funds for police salaries — a gap advocates want closed.

The state has faced criticism over settlement spending before. A former state comptroller found that Irvington spent more than half a million dollars on two drug-awareness concerts, and legislators diverted $45 million in settlement funds to hospitals wrestling with federal Medicaid cuts, drawing a die-in protest at the Statehouse.

The legislative response

Assemblyman Cody Miller, D-Gloucester, introduced legislation on Sept. 24 that would add explicit oversight, impose spending deadlines, require repayment of improperly used funds and tighten transparency requirements. The bill's details are still being revised, according to Burke-Beaty, who said advocates have proposed changes.

"I hope we move very expeditiously with trying to get this bill through committee," Miller said. "I think everyone has acknowledged that these funds should be spent for their intended purpose."

Advocates are also watching whether municipalities are using settlement dollars to plug budget holes as the state's fiscal picture tightens, pointing to expenditures on transportation and food pantries that historically came out of general funds. The portion of the money that does reach clinical services supports the same continuum that includes medication-assisted treatment and residential care — the services the settlements were designed to expand.