Borough of Glassboro

Summary

The Borough of Glassboro, Gloucester County, took in 402,144.91 of opioid settlement money across 29 receipts through 05/26/2026. The national settlements list uses for the money, among them treatment, recovery, connection to care, prevention and harm reduction. The list is not exhaustive. Other documented, evidence-based programs that address the epidemic also qualify. In either case the money must supplement local spending, not replace it.

The settlement money is appropriated in account G-01-41-877-000-001. It opened at 395,894.26 and closed at zero. Every movement out of it is a budget journal to police salary and wages.

No vendor, no provider, no naloxone and no program of any kind was paid from the account. The last receipt, 6,250.65 on 04/30/2026, was never appropriated. Journaled every appropriated dollar to police salaries.

This project classes all 395,894.26 as non-conforming. Read the Borough's findings.

The journals

The posting reference reports for journals 6003, 6179 and 6429 are the whole record of how 311,125.66 was moved. Each shows a journal type of Budget, a two letter user code and one or two lines of description. None has an approver field, an authorization or a stated basis. The 04/27/2023 entry rides inside a journal that also carries two unrelated technology reclassifications. The salary journals carry no approver and no stated basis. No posting reference report for journal 6681 was produced.

Journal 6429 posted on 06/30/2025, the last day of the State's reporting year. It credited 205,414.91 against account 5-01-25-240-240-111, police salary and wages. Moved 205,414.91 to police salary on the last day of FY2025.

The journal totals equal the receipts in consecutive blocks, to the cent. Journal 6003 equals the first four receipts. Journal 6179 equals the next three. Journal 6429 equals the fourteen receipts dated 2024. Journal 6681 equals the seven receipts of 05/15/2025 to 10/31/2025.

The Borough produced no payroll record tying any officer, title or pay period to the money. Its chief financial officer wrote on 08/19/2026 that the funds are not earmarked for a specific police officer. No position, co-responder or outreach role is funded by any of the 395,894.26. No officer or position is tied to the settlement money.

The police budget

The Borough's police salary and wages budget worksheets reach the appropriation by taking the gross salary total and subtracting named funding sources. Opioid Settlement Grant is one of them, in the same block as Safe and Secure, Rowan Contribution and Rowan Gift.

On the 2024 worksheet the 2023 column reads 5,594,926 less these sources.

That leaves 4,921,470.53. The 2023 police salary and wages audit trail gives the adopted amount as 4,921,471.00.

The 2024 worksheet carries 68,554.47 and 37,156.28. The 2025 worksheet carries 37,156.28. The 2026 worksheet carries 205,414.91 and 84,768.00. The first four equal the journals. The 2026 worksheet budgeted the last draw at 84,768.00, and the Borough executed it at 84,768.60. The settlement money was budgeted as a source for the existing police payroll. Reading that as supplantation under the settlement terms is an inference. The worksheet arithmetic, the adopted amounts and the posting entries are documentary. Budget sheets count the settlement toward police payroll.

What Glassboro told the State

Each town with a direct share files an annual report with the Department of Human Services. Each of Glassboro's certified spending figures is a salary journal.

The certified numbers were taken from the journals. The programs named on the reports do not exist in the books. Each certified figure equals a police salary journal.

The FY2024 and FY2025 reports name the Borough itself as recipient. The Borough certified its own police payroll to the State as harm reduction. The reports are false. Told the State the police payroll was harm reduction.

The balances are wrong too. The FY2024 report certifies 187,201.35 unspent. Receipts at the cutoff less spending were 139,613.53. The certified figure is receipts through 07/31/2024, a balance struck after the year closed. FY2024 report overstates the money on hand by 47,587.82.

The FY2025 report certifies 65,801.38 encumbered. The account shows nothing encumbered in budget year 2025 or 2026, and the report's own program page certifies 0.00 encumbered. The 65,801.38 equals six deposits that are already inside the 205,414.91 the same report certifies as spent. Certified as encumbered money it also certified as spent. The report overstates the money on hand by that amount. FY2025 report overstates the money on hand by 65,801.38.

FY2026

The FY2026 report covers 07/01/2025 to 06/30/2026. Its question 6 certifies 84,768.50 spent. Its program page certifies 84,768.60, which is journal 6681 to the cent. Moved the last 84,768.60 to police salaries in FY2026.

The program is the Glassboro Police Opioid Response, LEAD, Diversion and Community Outreach Program, filed under Primary Prevention, Education, and Training. It names five Schedule B strategies, among them Connections to Care, Harm Reduction and First Responders. It says up to five designated officers will take part in diversion, treatment referral, follow up and outreach. It reports 100 people served.

The same report explains where the money went. Its goals answer reads "Funds were applied to Police Department salary costs, enabling sustained staffing levels for officers involved in opioid related response, overdose calls, community outreach and enforcement activities." Its procurement answer says the Borough "will designate up to five existing Police Department officers" and that the funding "will assist in maintaining and expanding police staffing capacity."

The books show one entry, journal 6681, dated 02/01/2026. The same reference posts on the police salary line as "2025 Opioid Funds applied." No officer, position or activity is tied to it. A journal into the existing police payroll is not a prevention program. Certified police salaries as a LEAD and diversion program.

The report certifies 0.00 unspent on hand. The last receipt, 6,250.65 on 04/30/2026, was never appropriated or swept. The report's own figures do not give zero either. 405,911.61 received less 395,894.16 certified spent across four reports leaves 10,017.45. Certified nothing on hand while 6,250.65 sat unspent.

The report answers Yes to having a strategic plan and No to posting it online.

What should happen

The Borough charged 395,894.26 of settlement money to police salaries that its budget already carried. No listed use covers an existing payroll. The Borough can restore the money to the settlement fund from its own budget 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 can examine the FY2023 through FY2026 reports, the four journals and who approved them.

The audit trails are here, here and here. How this project classifies spending is set out in the methodology and the rubric. Corrections follow the corrections policy.