ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted Wednesday morning to allocate the money provided to the county from the 2022 opioid settlement for the future Belmont County Health Department.

A 2022 federal lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies was filed, with money from the settlement required to be divided between local governments within the state of Ohio.

“As many people know, there were a number of settlements in terms of opioid lawsuits across the country within the last several years, and some of those settlements resulted in funding directly to local governments and counties,” commissioner J.P. Dutton said. “Other funds go through a process in the state of Ohio with an organization called One Ohio, which is also sort of a clearinghouse for a portion of their settlement funds stays broken up into regions.”

He added that those regions then try to put together projects and apply to One Ohio to receive funding through that manner.

Dutton said that Wednesday’s funding only applies to settlement dollars directly received by the county, not funding that goes through One Ohio. The county has received $873,356 but Dutton said that it will continue to receive money from the settlement for the next 10 years.

“We’re going to use a portion of these funds towards the Health Department building project. We think it’s a good use of those funds,” Dutton said.

He added that due to both the Health Department and the Belmont County Coroner being tenants in the new building, it’s fitting that the settlement money goes to the new facility.

“Both of those entities were severely impacted by the opioid crisis. This is going to allow both those departments to continue to deal with the issues involved and to be even better serve those residents moving forward,” he said. “So we’re happy to be putting these funds to what we think is a very appropriate use.”

The cost of completing the new Health Department building is roughly $20 million..

Commissioner Jerry Echemann added that the county has yet to have to borrow any state or federal dollars while constructing the new building.

“We have a big, beautiful building up there at the old county home, and have not had to borrow

any money yet and we’ve made some substantial payments,” Echemann said.

This past July the board paid an invoice to Grae-Con Construction in the amount of $934,211.24 for construction costs on the building.

Dutton added that, although the county has yet to have to borrow any state or federal funds, he anticipates within the next few meetings the board will need to borrow funding.

“That situation will not be able to continue, because it is a real expensive project. But as we sit here right now, a lot of money has been paid that has not had to be borrowed,” Dutton replied to Echemann. “That’s a good point though. Within the next few meetings we’ll see some motions, probably by January at the latest, where we will be looking at some motions in relation to borrowing to complete the project.”

He added that the project is currently on phase one which is the most expensive phase.

Although phase one is the most expensive phase, Dutton said that phase two will also be expensive.

“Phase one is the building itself, and really just a few feet off the building. There’s a tremendous amount of site work that we’re doing at the site as well that will be considered phase two,” Dutton said. “Phase two will be the parking area, making some improvements right outside of the 911 and EMA building, which are existing offices, and actually we’re going to extend that into the laydown yard of the Belmont County Sanitary Sewer District.”

He added that the laydown yard was a new addition to the project.

“We figured while we were there, we might as well do some corrections that were needed there too,” he said. “It’s a very big project when it’s all said and done. That’s a great point to note that a great portion, at this point, has been paid for on hand.”