Montgomery County Awards $98,661 in Opioid Settlement Mini-Grants

The Montgomery County Board of Commissioners approved $98,661 in opioid settlement money for 2027 mini-grants, splitting the total among 13 local organizations that applied through the county's prevention coalition. Awards range from $400 to $25,000 and are grouped under four categories the county set for the funds: education and prevention, harm reduction, intervention, treatment and recovery, and justice services for first responders.

The applications were solicited through Drug Free Montgomery County, a program of the county's Youth Service Bureau, which also counts the local United Way and the Montgomery County Community Foundation among its backers. The money comes from settlements the opioid manufacturers reached with states, including Indiana, that distribute a share to counties and municipalities over decades.

What the grants actually fund

The published allocations put most of the money into treatment access, recovery staffing and the court system rather than into new programs.

United Way in Montgomery County received $20,000 to continue paying a Community Impact Associate, a navigator whose job is to oversee the continued development of the First Door program and to follow up with the people it has served. Recovery Coalition Inc. took two awards: $25,000 to keep peer recovery coaches employed through 2027 and $7,096.21 toward its director's salary. Cummins Behavioral Health Systems and Valley Oaks Health each received $15,000 — the first to help cover services for people who have difficulty paying for treatment, the second to continue an opioid grant project that offers peer recovery services under one roof for clients who could not otherwise afford them.

The courts absorbed the next largest share. Montgomery County Drug Court received $4,750 to help participants clear what the county describes as barriers to success in recovery, including housing, transportation and treatment expenses. The Family Recovery Court received $3,000 for legal aid, transportation, housing instability, identification documents, employment and clothing. The Veterans Treatment Court received $2,470 for participant incentives — phase movement tokens, fuel or food gift cards, and help with housing and transportation — and for its Volunteer Veteran Mentor Program.

The remainder went to smaller, more targeted uses: the Probation Department received $3,895 to expand youth diversion through Court Ordered Online Programs and the Prime for Life curriculum, the Crawfordsville Police Department received $2,050 for the 2027 DARE program, and Integrative Wellness received $400 for a medication lock cabinet meant to strengthen medication-assisted treatment for patients who need to store buprenorphine or other controlled medications at home.

Why a mini-grant round looks this way

Indiana, like most states, receives its share of the national opioid settlements under an agreement that requires the money to be spent on abatement — prevention, treatment, recovery support and harm reduction — rather than on general government costs. The categories Montgomery County used for this round track that framework directly, which is why a single decision funds a police drug-prevention curriculum, a peer staffing line, a medication cabinet and a mentoring program for veterans in the same vote.

The structure also explains the size of the awards. Mini-grant rounds are typically how counties reach organizations that would not hold a service contract on their own, and in Montgomery County that means recovery courts, a volunteer mentor program and a nonprofit whose director's salary is paid in part by abatement money. The tradeoff is duration: the awards cover 2027 only, and each recipient will have to apply again next year to keep the same work going.

The oversight question that runs underneath the vote

The distribution of settlement money around the country has drawn scrutiny for how far spending has drifted from treatment and recovery into equipment, vehicles and, in a few documented cases, unrelated budget lines. The four-category framework and an itemized public list are the two mechanisms counties use to answer that concern, and the application pipeline through Drug Free Montgomery County keeps the review with the county's own coalition rather than with individual departments.

What the list cannot show is what the money bought. The county did not publish performance measures alongside the awards, so the measure of success for 2027 will be whether the navigator position, the peer coaches and the diversion programs are still funded and still enrolled when the next round of applications opens.

People looking for treatment in Indiana can start with substance use disorder services and the state's recovery resources; the national help line at 1-800-662-4357 (SAMHSA) operates around the clock.