Photo by Craig Howell Brooke County Commissioners Christina White, left, and Stacey Wise discussed a variety of topics during Tuesday's commission meeting, including determining awards from the county's portion of opioid settlement funds.

WELLSBURG — Brooke County officials are hoping to get discussions on the possible distribution of county opioid settlement funds back on track after several months of delays.

A series of requests for the county’s share of opioid funds, derived from settlement agreements connected to various lawsuits filed by the state against manufacturers and distributors of pharmaceutical opioids, has been tabled in recent months as commissioners and others could not reach a consensus on how to address the issue.

“We will address it,” Commissioner Christina White said during Tuesday’s commission meeting.

White was recently appointed to the commission following the resignation of A.J. Thomas.

Both White and Commissioner Stacey Wise indicated there will be workshops, which will be open to the public, scheduled to offer detailed discussion on the funding available, the requests already made for the county’s funds and methods of distribution.

Dates and times for those work sessions will be announced later.

According to Tuesday’s agenda, the county has nine requests for the funds, all of which have remained tabled in recent months as commissioners have been unable to agree on how to award funding.

Those requests include the Brooke County Sheriff’s Department for $580,000; the Brooke County Health Department for $159,784; WVU Medicine for $125,000; a request from county Emergency Management/Emergency Medical Services Assistant Deputy Director Mike Loborec for more than $120,550; Easter Seals for $20,000; Empower and Link Inc. for $374,015; EMA/EMS Director Greg Moore for $75,000; Youth Services System Inc. for $185,000 and the Brooke County Firefighters Association for $116,599.

Capt. Kyler Ferguson of the Brooke County Sheriff’s Department was among those in attendance Tuesday, urging commissioners to restart discussions. The Sheriff’s Department previously had proposed using funding, if awarded, to purchase drug test kits, digital license plate readers, body and dash cameras and an armored vehicle for use by the department’s Special Response Team.

“I’d like to get started,” he said.

Brooke County Prosecutor Allison Cowden expressed frustration over the lack of funding awards to date.

Commissioners previously discussed the possibility of establishing a volunteer committee to review applications for the opioid funds, to be composed of local law enforcement, county officials and representatives of the community. That idea was abandoned at the end of February, with commissioners instead opting to review applications and award funds themselves.

Brooke County has received approximately $1.1 million in opioid settlement funds.

(Howell can be contacted at chowell@weirtondailytimes.com)