Lebanon County officials have created several programs designed to help people seeking assistance for their drug and alcohol addictions.
James Donmoyer Jr., executive director of the Lebanon County Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse, said the county is focused on spending the nearly $4.2 million allocated to the county as part of the opioid settlement lawsuit on treatment programs.
“We either expand treatment programs that we now have in place or I’m tasked to create new ones,” said Donmoyer. “My intention is, the priority is, treatment of individuals and that the money that’s being spent is spent on people who need help. My goal is to get people who need help the help they need for the benefit of the community.”
The county currently administers two programs: MAT (Medically Assisted Treatment for an Opioid Abuse Disorder), as well as providing a specialized probation officer for Opioid Use Disorder/Substance Use Disorder (OUD/SUD) within the county’s probation department.
A third program was a one-time, two-day training program known as Critical Incident Stress Management Training, which created a crisis team to assist local first responders who suffer a work-related traumatic event.
“The first project we entered into was an MAT maintenance program at the Lebanon County Correctional Facility,” said Donmoyer. “We are maintaining people who come into the prison already on an MAT. We’re paying to maintain them on their MAT, not starting new cases for those not already on it.”
Donmoyer said that initiative, which also pays a corrections officer to help with the program at the prison, was very needed. That program was launched in January 2023.
“The maintenance program at the prison was long overdue,” he said. “This will help them maintain while they are at the county prison. We have a contract with PrimeCare Medical to provide that service.”
PrimeCare is the sole contracted provider of various medical services at the county correctional facility, with the exception of administering methadone, according to chief executive officer Tom Weber.
Weber said the cards are stacked statistically against incarcerated individuals who don’t have access to a MAT program while they are in a correctional facility.
“Statistics show that people who have a substance abuse disorder have a 119 higher percent rate of suffering an overdose after being released,” said Weber. “So it is a vulnerable population, especially if they’ve been incarcerated for a period of time.”
There are currently 18 prisoners in the MAT program and 108 who have received treatment since it started 14 months ago, according to Donmoyer. The program costs over $125,000 annually to administer.
Lebanon County is slated to receive payments over an 18-year period from a variety of pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies that were sued following the onset of the opioid epidemic, meaning no taxpayer dollars are being used for these programs.
“If we look at that project at the prison to maintain people who come into the prison on the MAT program, it will cost $130,000 a year,” said Donmoyer. “It will be $2.34 million to maintain that program at today’s costs for 18 years.”
The second program has a probation officer handle a special case load for alcohol and substance abuse.
“A lot of people in the criminal justice system – 85 percent of them – have a drug and alcohol addiction issue,” said Donmoyer. “We know that there is a mental health officer who has a specific mental health caseload, so we decided to use that same idea to have a probations officer have a specialized caseload for people with OUD issues, substance abuse issues and co-occurring issues. We have a probations officer with a specialized caseload.”
Those two programs are expected to cover the costs for a large portion of the settlement funds. Donmoyer said the probation officer program will cost $90,000 annually, amounting to $1.62 million at today’s costs over 18 years.
“Currently, the individual who has this caseload has 23 clients,” said Donmoyer. “They are all drug- and alcohol-related clients. The goal of that program, obviously, is to keep people out of prison who need treatment. The other goal of that program is to monitor those people so they’re not in the system time and time again.”
Donmoyer added that 21 of the 23 program participants are currently receiving treatment.
“Out of the 23 people, 21 are in treatment,” he said. “One has a violation, so they’re not in treatment, they’re in prison, and one’s scheduled for court. So the idea behind that is treatment over incarceration and hopefully getting them out of relapsing, recidivism, and things like that.”
Donmoyer is working to create and maintain a Critical Incident Stress Management Team in Lebanon County to assist first responders who have a traumatic on-the-job experience.
“Lebanon County does not have one,” said Donmoyer. “As far as I know, they’ve never had one. If something serious happens here in Lebanon County, there is a traumatic event. You are talking about defusing, advising, debriefing, counseling, anything happens here in Lebanon County, we don’t have our own team.”
One example that Donmoyer gave was that a team from Dauphin County had to be brought in following the fatal shooting of Lebanon officer Lt. William Lebo in 2022. Funding to pay for this initiative was permissible since OD deaths can be traumatic for first responders.
“Overdoses are included in situations where there is high trauma, at the scene and a lot of counseling and debriefing is needed for people who respond to those calls – the EMTs, the police, the hospital personnel, whoever it may be for those people who deal with those folks,” he said. “The training was a once-and-done training program, so it isn’t like we’re going to do that annually.”
Donmoyer said this is the third year of receiving payments with the settlement fund but he waited until money was in county coffers before launching any programs.
“I didn’t want to start programs that I couldn’t pay for during those 18 years,” he said. “So I’m not adding 10 programs that will cost $6 million when I know I only have $4 million to spend, if that makes sense.”
Together, the two main programs will cost Lebanon County, at today’s figures, $3.96 million over 18 years, meaning there technically will be some remaining funds for other programs.
“There are a lot of other training programs that exist but not in Lebanon County that you can use the opioid funds for,” Donmoyer said.
The commission will also add a street outreach coordinator thanks to the settlement funding.
“This is a person who works in the community, this is a person who is working with these types of people we are talking about today,” said Donmoyer. “People struggling with addiction, people looking for resources. We’re talking about people who have physical health issues and this person can help them get the treatment they need. That’s a position I am going to contract with a provider to provide for our community.”
And other programs may come to fruition as well.
“There’s a lot of things we can still do because there’s a lot of leeway in Exhibit E. I’m just trying to put together things in Lebanon County that we do not have,” added Donmoyer.
Donmoyer said the trust that created the fund for distribution to county governments issued a 15-page document known as “Exhibit E: List of Opiate Remediation Uses.” That document explains how the money can be spent.
“It can be spent on treatment and recovery. It can be spent on intervention. It can be spent on prevention services that are OUD, which is opiate use disorder, SUD, substance use disorder, or co-occurring services,” he noted.
LebTown asked who decided how Lebanon County was going to spend its opioid settlement funding since there are various methods under Exhibit E for it to be utilized.
“A collaboration of a lot of different entities,” said Donmoyer, who said it involved people in law enforcement, the sheriff’s department, county officials, the commission’s board and its advisory board. “I sit on different boards and they all had a say. I can tell you I didn’t make a decision on my own on how to spend the opiate settlement money.”
Donmoyer said the settlement funding is not intended for law enforcement efforts since it is absent from Exhibit E.
“The intention of the money is to help people, not incarcerate people,” he said. “If (DA) Pier (Hess Graf) comes to me and can show that her idea falls under Exhibit E, I’ll more than welcome the opportunity to work with the district attorney’s office.”
Donmoyer said other counties are using the money for diversion programming. In Lebanon County, there are three diversion courts: DUI, Veterans and Drug.
“If any of them come to me with a program and say this is what we’re thinking about for our court, I’m open to it,” he added. “Whatever we have is for the treatment and prevention side of the equation, not for enforcement. If you have a diversion program that keeps people out of the criminal justice system, I’m all for it.”
Donmoyer said anyone suffering from drug or alcohol abuse and wants assistance is encouraged to call the Lebanon County Crisis Intervention Hotline at 717-274-3363. This same hotline is available for people considering suicide or suffering mental health issues. All calls are free and confidential.
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