Sussex County

Summary

Sussex County received 2,802,750.50 in settlement payments and interest through 06/30/2026. That is the figure its FY2026 report gives, and it equals every receipt and interest posting in the County's reserve account, 02-214-55-000-025, to the cent. By 08/28/2026 the total was 3,163,787.39. 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 County spends from accounts in the 02-213-39-901-23000 series. Through 08/28/2026 they paid 936,513.58 net and held 493,735.95 in open orders. The reserve held 1,597,187.39.

This project classes the paid money this way.

Most of the money went to listed uses with a documented program. The Center for Prevention and Counseling runs Botvin LifeSkills in County schools. Big Brothers Big Sisters runs youth mentoring. InSite Health runs a school wellness and care navigation program. Eleven municipal alliances receive prevention grants. Smaller grants pay for rides to treatment, healthcare costs for families experiencing homelessness, drug disposal bags, overdose awareness advertising and an opioid use disorder course for Newton police. The fund also pays part of the salary of the County employee who plans and contracts the settlement money, which the reports disclose as administration.

The non-conforming money is the vape sensor program, the Tru Narc device and two gun holsters bought for a Sheriff's youth academy. Read the County's findings.

What the County told the State

The FY2025 and FY2026 program pages tie to the books. The FY2026 program figures equal the payments behind them to the cent, and the youth academy's figure is its payments less participant fees. The FY2025 encumbered figure, 399,353.01, equals the orders open on 06/30/2025. The FY2024 encumbered figure, 540,000.00, is the budget the Board inserted on 10/11/2023, which the question allows as an appropriation.

The problems are in what some of the figures describe, one check counted twice, and the unspent balances.

The vape sensors

On 12/11/2024 the Board of County Commissioners adopted Resolution 677-2024. It authorizes 99,955.00 to NEWCOM Wireless Services for vape detection systems through a cooperative contract. The agenda description says they are "to be distributed to participating Sussex County schools." The Treasurer's certification charges account 02-213-39-901-23300, Substance Use Prevention/Early Intervention.

The County then paid NEWCOM six invoices and reimbursed four school districts.

The NEWCOM invoices describe the standard sensor as "Effective on All Vaped or Smoked Nicotine and THC." The school safety model is sold as a "Vape Detector and School Safety Device" that can "Detect Keywords associated with distress and vandalism." Of the 185,466.50 paid to NEWCOM, 73,814.00 is six year cloud subscriptions for alerts and a dashboard.

The FY2025 report certifies the program at 252,444.09, the eight FY2025 payments to the cent. It files it under Primary Prevention, Education, and Training, with the Schedule B strategy Prevent Misuse of Opioids. It says the detectors will identify students who vape so they can be connected with cessation programs. It also says "The County is not tracking the performance of these devices," which it calls part of larger programs individual to each school. No such program is in the record. The FY2026 report adds 14,436.50 under the same program. It reports that schools find the sensors "successful in stopping vaping in the buildings."

Exhibit E's school entry covers programs and strategies that have demonstrated effectiveness in preventing drug misuse. Sensors that detect nicotine and THC vapor are not among the uses Exhibit E lists, and no cessation or prevention program using them is documented. Certified school vape sensors as opioid misuse prevention.

Cameras at High Point Regional

The High Point Regional reimbursement, 39,814.39, is the hardware and licenses on OSI Technology quote 38794, 69,940.39 less 30,126.00 of installation. Beside 24 environmental sensors, the quote buys 11 Verkada indoor dome cameras with up to 30 days of video retention, a viewing station and three years of licenses for them. Those items come to 13,924.54. The quote installs the cameras at the high school and adds them to Verkada's cloud based command center. Neither report mentions cameras. Paid for 11 school surveillance cameras as vape detection.

A 2023 purchase repaid

The Sussex-Wantage Regional Board of Education bought two Verkada vaping sensors and their licenses for 2,238.00 on its own purchase order dated 01/30/2023, school year 2022-2023. The County repaid the full 2,238.00 from the settlement account on 03/12/2025. The FY2025 report describes the policy as reimbursing schools "that had just purchased them." The district had bought the sensors two years before. Repaid a school district for a 2023 vape sensor purchase.

The Tru Narc device

The FY2025 report lists a program named Tru Narc Device, recipient the Sussex County Prosecutor, funded 05/22/2025 at 42,619.00. It says the Prosecutor's Office Narcotics Division will use the device to identify new drug threats more quickly and tell local agencies and the community when more deadly threats are found. It files the program under Harm Reduction and Overdose Prevention. At filing the device had not been used.

Safeware, Inc. was paid 42,619.00 by check 126956 on 07/23/2025, from an account the County titles Prosecutor's Office Opioid Detection System. It is the only payment the County has made to Safeware since 2018. The FY2026 report certifies the full amount as spent in FY2026 and reports one indicator, awareness of current and new threats in the drug supply, with no count. The records in hand show no drug alert, tested sample or notice to a provider or the public.

Exhibit E's harm reduction list names fentanyl checking within syringe service programs and fentanyl screening in clinical toxicology. It does not name a drug identification device held by a prosecutor's narcotics unit, and no drug alert program using this device is documented. Certified a prosecutor's Tru Narc device as harm reduction.

One check, two years

The FY2024 report certifies 32,465.00 spent between 07/01/2023 and 06/30/2024 on the Center for Prevention's Botvin LifeSkills program. Nothing left the settlement accounts in that year. Check 121450 paid the provider 32,465.00 on 07/24/2024.

The FY2025 report certifies the same program at 71,822.00 spent between 07/01/2024 and 06/30/2025. That is check 121450 plus checks of 28,800.00 and 10,557.00, to the cent. Read together, the FY2024 and FY2025 reports certify 497,101.13 spent through 06/30/2025. The books show 464,636.13. Counted one 32,465.00 check as spent in two years.

The unspent figure

The County keeps the settlement money in a reserve and, since 07/03/2024, posts the bank interest to its own subaccount, 02-214-55-000-02599. Each report's unspent figure leaves that interest out.

The same reports count the interest in the total received. Left the fund's interest out of its unspent balance.

The Sheriff's Junior Police Academy

The Sheriff's Office runs a one week summer academy for middle school students, funded from the settlement since 2025. The reports describe it as life skills prevention with LEAD built in. Through 08/28/2026 the academy account paid 17,298.36. It bought food, shirts, challenge coins, trophies inscribed Top Recruit Squad, certificate holders, logo bags, an order printed as ASGSO silicon oil for 2,599.12, and two gun holsters for 789.52 and 125.67. Enrollment fees of 5,600.00 were credited to the account. The FY2026 report certifies the year's cost net of the fees, 4,308.58, under Primary Prevention.

No curriculum or prevention material is in the record. This project classes the holsters as non-conforming and the rest of the academy's costs as unverified.

Where the money went

The County had 493,735.95 in open orders on 08/28/2026, most of them for the Center for Prevention, InSite Health, the municipal alliances and treatment providers.

What should happen

The fund has paid 310,414.78 for vape sensors, school cameras, a district's earlier purchase, a prosecutor's drug identification device and gun holsters. None of it is tied to a documented overdose or prevention program. The County 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, FY2025 and 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.