TheVoiceOfJoyce The NashVillager’s problems reflect the woes of our Country. Opioid settlement money is finally trickling down to the States and communities most affected by the crisis and they’re fighting over the meager funds usage. Is it going to help addicts and the right mental health professionals? It’s a conundrum that’s fixable with oversight. Opioid addiction and overdoses destroy lives, it’s too bad some Billionaire isn’t investing their money in a cause that directly helps people in need. Nashville’s next problem discusses their rising dew point and unbearable heat. This phenomenon has been replicated all over America. Older New Yorkers stayed indoors, with air conditioning, to avoid the oppressive heat. America needs a Manhattan Project for fusion technology and energy. Instead, Trump wants to mine coal on Public Lands. Focus on your town and please focus on stopping Trump Republicans from returning to office. We have the tools to create a better World, vote for Legislators, who care about people first! We can’t survive with opioids or weather catastrophes. These are both man made phenomena.

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You power your local public media.Donate todayTuesday, July 28, 2026Good morning! Catherine Sweeney

State and local governments across the country have been in hot water over how they spend opioid settlement money, and Nashville has joined the ranks.

For years, there was a deluge of lawsuits, where people argued the companies knowingly and recklessly created the deadly overdose epidemic. Opioid makers, sellers and marketers have shelled out roughly $50 billion in legal settlements. 

The idea here is the money has to help alleviate the epidemic — by doing things like connecting people with treatment, making overdose reversal drugs easier to get, or making sure people who are already in active addiction don’t get sicker from things like used needles or broken pipes.

That money trickles down from the companies to cities and counties in unpredictable ways that are different state to state.

Long story short, Nashville has gotten about $13 million over the past few years.

And this summer, the Metro released an internal auditraising red flags about how that money is being spent.

WHAT TO KNOW

This Aug. 29, 2018, file photo shows an arrangement of prescription oxycodone pills in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

In Nashville, the Metro Public Health Department is overseeing the money. Its goal is to connect people with substance use treatment before they overdose. That’s largely through a continuum of care program. The department brought in the Mental Health Cooperative and Samaritan Recovery Community to provide services.

The internal audit, released in June, says there is no question whether that’s an appropriate use of the money. That has been an issue in other communities across the country and here in Tennessee.

But it did raise several concerns about whether the money is being managed well.

About half the money is going to salaries of health department workers. The audit says there’s not a good system in place to track how much of their time goes to opioid-related work, so there’s a chance the money is paying for time un-related to opioids. The audit accuses managers of interfering with the investigation into that problem — keeping employees from talking with auditors independently. 

The other concern is about oversight more generally. There were mistakes on payments to contractors. For example, an invoice of more than $100,000 was paid to Mental Health Cooperative, even though it was meant for the Samaritan Recovery Community. The auditors say the department isn’t doing a good job measuring how programs are working over time. 

A handful of Metro Councilmembers pitched a bill that would create more oversight for this program. Among other things it would shift some of the management over to the city’s finance department and create a public dashboard to show where all of the money is going.

Nashville is far from alone in its struggles. And again, there were no concerns that this was a valid use of the money.

Opioid settlement funding is unique. It’s not like federal funding or grant money, that comes with a lot of strings attached. There is no independent, separate organization making sure the money is managed well. The opioid companies aren’t keeping an eye on it. Aneri Pattani, a reporter at KFF Health News, has covered the issue for years. I highly recommend her work.

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On today’s episode of the NashVillagerpodcast with host Nina Cardona 🎙️ 

Is there a difference between the LPRs that Metro debated for years and the Flock cameras in the news now? Now that license plate readers are in place over much of Tennessee, there’s a bill to limit future rollout. Plus the local news for July 28, 2026, and the MTSU tie to Supergirl. 

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MORE TO KNOW

  • The temperatures have been in the 80s, but it still feels oppressive out. And the National Weather Service keeps issuing heat advisories. WPLN’s environmental reporter Caroline Eggers wrote a good explainer on why. Weather forecasters look to the “dew point,” which measures when air can hold no more moisture at a given temperature. The higher the dew point, the higher the heat index, and the harder it becomes for the human body to cool off through the evaporation of sweat. The National Weather Service says humidity may start to feel oppressive with dew points at or above 65 degrees. The dew point has been in the high 70s for days. It’s nearing the record set in 1995, 82 degrees.
     
  • Two Middle Tennessee physicians have been charged with healthcare fraud as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown. The Nashville Business Journal reports the pair is accused of prescribing “excessive and inappropriate quantities and combinations” of medications. Dr. Ramon Aquino of Clarksville Dr. Angela Moss of Gordonsville were two of the nearly 500 people charged in the nationwide initiative.
     
  • If you go see DC’s “Supergirl” this summer, you’ll hear from a recent Middle Tennessee State University grad. The movie features a slowed-down version of the Jimmy Eat World hit “The Middle,” performed by a violinist, singer now MTSU alum Kelty Greye. She talked with one of WPLN’s news editors, Dan Potter, about how she had just started to give up on her dream of a music career before learning she’d be featured in a Warner Bros. production. 

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