Cranford Township
Cranford Township certified Flock license plate cameras to the State as a diversion program, certified a breath alcohol tester as peer recovery support, and counted a check paid after year end as FY2025 spending.
Published 09/25/2026 · Updated 10/03/2026
TLDR
- Cranford Township paid Flock Safety for license plate reader cameras from its settlement account. It told the State the cameras were Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion. The certified figures match the Flock orders to the cent. The FY2026 report did it a third time, 10,318.00.
- It bought a Draeger Alcotest 9510 breath alcohol system for 22,822.50 and certified it as Connect to Peer Recovery Support. It reported 0 referrals to treatment.
- It counted that 22,822.50 as spent in the year ending 06/30/2025. The check cleared 07/09/2025. The same report certified nothing encumbered.
- Its drug take-back program was two payroll charges. Part of it paid two detectives for a fraud presentation.
- Of 82,629.76 spent from the settlement accounts through 07/10/2026, 57,240.50 went to the cameras and the breath tester.
Summary
Cranford Township, Union County, reported receiving 113,703.87 in opioid settlement money through 06/30/2025. The money must go to the abatement uses the national settlements list, or to documented evidence-based programs that address the epidemic. It must add to local spending, not replace it. The listed uses cover treatment, recovery, connection to care, prevention and harm reduction.
The Township keeps the money in four accounts. The audit trails and the September update show 82,629.76 spent through 07/10/2026. Flock cameras took 34,418.00 and the breath tester 22,822.50. Payroll took 10,239.26. A first responder opioid course took 12,150.00 and two high school programs 3,000.00.
The Township's reports to the Department of Human Services give treatment and diversion names to police purchases. The FY2025 report counts a payment made after the year closed. The unspent balances in the reports do not follow from their own figures. Read the Township's findings.
The cameras
On 08/08/2023 the Township Committee adopted Resolution 2023-256. It authorizes a Flock Safety automated license plate recognition contract not to exceed 90,900. It gives the purpose as police investigations of automobile thefts, automobile burglaries, residential burglaries and other indictable crimes. It charges the contract to a police capital ordinance and a police donations trust. It does not mention opioids.
Flock's quotes Q-31583 and Q-31657 cover six Falcon cameras on 60 month terms, at contract totals of 75,750.00 and 15,150.00. The Flock vendor history shows the Township paid 90,900.00 on 10/25/2023 from those two accounts.
Every Flock payment after that came from the settlement account.
| Date | Purchase order | Purchase | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05/22/2024 | 24-00540 | Falcon ALPR and implementation fee | 9,450.00 |
| 03/26/2025 | 25-00687 | Flock Safety 2025 and professional services | 14,650.00 |
| 05/20/2026 | 26-00958 | LPR cameras and three year data retention, less a credit | 10,318.00 |
| Total | 34,418.00 |
The FY2024 report certifies one program, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion - Pharmacy Fraud, at 9,450.00. Its statement of impact begins "By utilizing ALPR systems." Its funded date, 2/28/2024, is the date the Flock order was encumbered. The FY2025 report certifies a program of the same name at 14,650.00. Both figures match the Flock orders to the cent. The FY2026 report does the same with the 2026 order, covered below.
The 2025 Flock order form lists four license plate reader cameras. It describes real-time alerts, alerts on vehicles in the NCIC and NCMEC databases, and custom hot lists for a suspect's plate. It does not mention opioids, overdose, treatment or diversion. A Captain of Police signed it on 3/10/25. The Flock signature block is blank. No resolution authorizing a Flock purchase after 2023 is in the records the Township produced.
Law enforcement assisted diversion is a listed use. It diverts people to treatment instead of arrest. No record shows anyone diverted or referred through the cameras. Certified license plate cameras as a diversion program. A police captain signed the 2025 Flock order form.
The Township started the camera program with its own capital and trust money, then paid for every later purchase from the settlement fund. The budget detail for both accounts shows the capital ordinance spent to 0.00 on 10/25/2023. The police donations trust took in 303,075.00 from 05/16/2023 to 08/06/2024, including 1,000.00 described as a Flock camera expansion donation. It still held 130,258.10 when the settlement account paid Flock in May 2024, 132,160.32 in March 2025 and 86,818.63 in May 2026. The trust kept paying for other police technology, including a 7,400.00 Cellebrite subscription renewal in October 2025.
The Police Department's own expense lines paid Reconyx for a camera in 2019 and an ALPR unit in 2020, and paid for Flock camera electrical work in September 2023. No Flock payment appears on those lines. That the settlement money paid for a program the Township would otherwise have funded itself is this project's inference. Flock cameras moved from police funds to settlement funds.
The breath tester
The FY2025 report certifies a program named Connect to Peer Recovery Support - Tools for Drug Recognition Support at 22,822.50. It describes on call peer recovery coverage through Union County's Helping Hands 365 initiative, which it says the non-profit Prevention Links will implement.
The 22,822.50 is Draeger purchase order 24-01755.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Draeger Alcotest 9510 system | 17,900.00 |
| Alcotest 9510, 10 year | 3,968.00 |
| Alcotest 9510, dry gas | 400.00 |
| Alcotest 9510 component | 174.50 |
| Alcotest 9510, UPS Pro | 380.00 |
| Total | 22,822.50 |
The settlement accounts show no payment to Prevention Links or any peer recovery provider. The report's one performance figure is "Number of referrals to treatment," reported as 0. The report says the Alcotest shows a zero alcohol reading before a police drug recognition evaluation. Certified a breath alcohol tester as peer recovery support.
The Draeger vendor history runs from 01/17/2018 to 03/11/2026. Every other Draeger charge in it, 5,154.75 of Alcotest certification, calibration, simulator and solution costs, was paid from police and communications lines. That includes Alcotest 7110 items in May 2024 and a dry gas order in March 2026. The Police Department's expense audit trails for 2019 to 2026 show Draeger charges in every budget year but 2025. The breath testing program lived in the police budget before the settlement paid for its new instrument and after. That the settlement took over a police cost is this project's inference. Breath testing sat in the police budget before and after.
What the FY2025 report counted as spent
The FY2025 report covers 07/01/2024 to 06/30/2025. It certifies 56,184.27 expended and 0.00 encumbered.
| Record | Amount |
|---|---|
| Certified expended, FY2025 | 56,184.27 |
| Zschool, check 67642, 03/26/2025 | 12,150.00 |
| Flock Safety, check 67571, 03/26/2025 | 14,650.00 |
| The Black Poster Project and Dance Boss, 05/21/2025 | 3,000.00 |
| Payroll, 03/14/2025 and 05/09/2025 | 3,561.77 |
| Paid in the period | 33,361.77 |
| Difference, Draeger order 24-01755 | 22,822.50 |
The Draeger order was encumbered on 09/04/2024. Check 68293 paid it on 07/09/2025, nine days after the period closed. On 06/30/2025 it was open on the account, and the report certified nothing encumbered. The report gives the program's launch date as 08/26/2025. Reported a check paid after year end as FY2025 spending.
The reports' balances do not add up either. The FY2024 report lists 75,605.67 received since 2022 and 76,737.90 unspent on hand. That is 1,132.23 more than the Township says it ever received. FY2024 report shows more unspent money than it received.
The take-back program
The FY2025 report certifies a Pop-Up Mobile Drug Take Back Program at 3,561.77. It says the funding was "mainly for police overtime" to staff disposal sites at senior housing and outside pharmacies. Two payroll charges make the figure to the cent, 2,587.37 on 03/14/2025 and 974.40 on 05/09/2025.
The Police Department overtime report behind the 2,587.37 lists six Detective Bureau shifts of 4.50 hours from 02/24/2025 to 02/28/2025. Two are marked Medicine Box Detail. Two are marked Prescription Med Drop Detail. Two are marked Fraud Presentation, 834.48 at the handwritten rate. Drug take-back is a listed use. A fraud presentation is not. No record states what the 974.40 paid for. Drug take-back program included a fraud presentation.
The Township first produced that report with the activity column blacked out. It later released it in full.
The payroll
Through 07/10/2026 the settlement payroll accounts carry 10,239.26. A payroll allocation register for code 439200, National Opioids Grant, lists 16 payments to 15 employees totaling 7,651.89. It names no department, activity or program. Only the overtime report says what any of the work was. Charged 10,239.26 of payroll, most with no stated purpose.
Of that payroll, 5,776.65 posted in the FY2026 report year. The FY2026 report certifies two police programs with no vendor, a Pop-Up Mobile Drug Take Back Program at 1,845.61 and Helping Hands 365 Mobilization at 3,003.84. The second is the amount of one payroll posting on 06/26/2026.
FY2026
The FY2026 report, published 10/01/2026, covers 07/01/2025 to 06/30/2026. It certifies 22,792.01 received, 15,167.45 spent, nothing encumbered and 64,245.12 unspent on hand. The settlement accounts paid 38,917.15 in the year. 22,822.50 of that is the Draeger order the FY2025 report had already counted.
The largest program is Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion - Pharmacy Fraud at 10,318.00, under Harm Reduction and Overdose Prevention, with 25 people served. Its intended impact reads "By utilizing ALPR system." Its procurement answer describes buying ALPR systems. Flock Safety purchase order 26-00958, check 70268 on 05/20/2026, is Flock license plate reader cameras and three years of data retention, less a credit. It makes the certified figure to the cent. That is the third year the Township has certified Flock cameras as diversion. No record shows anyone diverted or referred through the cameras. Certified a third year of Flock cameras as LEAD diversion.
Where the money went
| Payee | Purchase | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Flock Safety | License plate reader cameras and services | 34,418.00 |
| Draeger Inc. | Alcotest 9510 breath alcohol system | 22,822.50 |
| Police equipment | 57,240.50 | |
| Payroll | Overtime and payroll under code 439200 | 10,239.26 |
| Zschool, LLC | Opioid Operational Readiness course, police and fire | 12,150.00 |
| The Black Poster Project | Overdose awareness installation, Cranford High School | 1,500.00 |
| Dance Boss LLC | High school assembly | 1,500.00 |
| Spent through 07/10/2026 | 82,629.76 |
One program ties to a listed use. The FY2025 report certifies it at 12,150.00, and one Zschool check makes that figure to the cent. It is a four hour course on opioid use disorder and connecting people to care. Opioid course for police and fire ties to one payment.
What should happen
The account paid 57,240.50 for cameras and a breath tester. The Township certified them under diversion and peer recovery names the records do not support. Neither is among the uses Exhibit E lists, and no overdose program using this equipment is documented. The Township can restore that money to the fund and spend it on a listed use or a documented abatement program.
The State relies on these reports to verify compliance. The Department of Human Services and the Office of the State Comptroller should examine the FY2024 to FY2026 reports, who prepared them, and what records support them.
How this project classifies spending is set out in the methodology and the rubric. Corrections follow the corrections policy.