Opioid settlement dollars were designed to remediate a public health crisis; in Washington Township, New Jersey, municipal records and state filings show a significant share went instead to police SUVs and automated license-plate readers, crystallizing how a legally complex funding stream can drift toward familiar public-safety purchases rather than treatment, recovery, and prevention.
The Short Version
- Municipal bill lists and an advocacy audit attribute nearly $268,000 in opioid-settlement spending to two Chevrolet Tahoe police SUVs and a network of Flock license-plate cameras between 2024 and 2026.
- Itemized payments from the township’s opioid account reportedly covered initial camera buys, renewals, and data-retention contracts with Flock Group Inc..
- New Jersey’s own guidance requires settlement funds to support opioid-use-disorder prevention, treatment, recovery, and related strategies—not general government spending.
- A Rutgers public health scholar says Flock systems are a law-enforcement surveillance tool, not an evidence-based opioid intervention.
What Washington Township bought with opioid funds
Published reporting and a dedicated expenditure review identify a run of payments from Washington Township’s opioid-settlement account for two 2024 Chevrolet Tahoe police SUVs and for a growing network of automated license-plate readers supplied by Flock Group Inc. Totals vary slightly by whether renewals and data services are included, but together the SUVs and 15–17 readers are reported at nearly $268,000 across 2024–2026. The audit’s payment trail includes discrete entries tied to 10 cameras in April 2025, two more in February 2026, and five additional units, plus contracts for storage and subscription services that make the system operational. Across sources, the core point is consistent: opioid dollars purchased police equipment rather than clinical or recovery services.
That characterization is not merely semantic. Flock’s platform captures plate numbers, time, and location; agencies subscribe to the service, which persists data and enables searches across a multi-jurisdictional network. The technology is marketed for stolen-car recovery, wanted-person alerts, and property-crime investigations—classic police missions, not overdose reversal or medication-assisted treatment. Rutgers associate professor Rafael E. Pérez-Figueroa calls Flock cameras a law-enforcement tool, not an evidence-based public health intervention for opioid use or overdose prevention.
How the spending was reported to the state
One detail elevates this local story from a procurement oddity to a compliance red flag: the expenditure certification the township reportedly filed with the state. According to NJ.com and the Opioid Audit, Washington Township certified spending $170,446.70 on a “school-based narcotics and education program” and “drug education”—an amount that precisely matches, down to the cent, payments documented for the two Tahoes and the first 15 Flock readers. That one-to-one correspondence invites scrutiny; if funds were used for police vehicles and surveillance subscriptions, how do those purchases substantively constitute school-based narcotics programming or drug education? New Jersey’s official FAQ is unambiguous in its framing: opioid settlement funds must be used for prevention, treatment, and recovery strategies authorized in the settlement terms and may not be diverted to other purposes.
To be sure, the settlement framework and New Jersey’s implementing materials allow certain law-enforcement–adjacent uses—pre-arrest diversion, co-responder models, overdose response, and transportation to treatment—so long as there is a credible programmatic link to opioid remediation. But that permission hinges on the activity itself, not the badge on the asset title. A patrol SUV or a camera network must be demonstrably used in a qualifying program; ownership by a police department is not disqualifying, but nor is it sufficient to justify the expense.
Why this matters beyond one township
Washington Township’s choices mirror a broader national pattern: a large “other” bucket in state and local reporting that often sweeps in law enforcement, mixed public safety–public health initiatives, and line items that elude clean classification. A legislative analysis of settlement outlays through 2024 found roughly $2.19 billion in reported spending, with about $903 million—over 40 percent—categorized as “other,” a catch-all that makes it hard to distinguish public-health remediation from ordinary government procurement. The ambiguity is not harmless. Each SUV or surveillance network purchased with opioid dollars is an opportunity cost versus naloxone distribution, recovery housing, medication-assisted treatment slots, or community-based peer support—all interventions with documented effects on overdose morbidity and mortality.
New Jersey has already lived the consequences of permissive categories and thin oversight. The Office of the State Comptroller has warned that settlement funds must be tracked in separate accounts and used only for allowable remediation, and it has investigated municipalities that treated the money as discretionary cash rather than restricted aid. The state’s own FAQ codifies the intent and limits, which gives watchdogs a powerful interpretive anchor when they compare local purchases to the settlement’s Schedule B strategies and to state law.
The competing frame: public safety as remediation
Police leaders often argue that crime linked to addiction—shoplifting to support use, car thefts tied to trafficking, catalytic-converter rings—feeds overdose risk and community harm, making public safety part of the opioid response. In Washington Township, the police chief said license-plate readers were intended to “break the cycle of addiction-related crime,” linking the technology to a broader harm-reduction theory even if the mechanism is indirect. New Jersey guidance does recognize certain law-enforcement–connected approaches as allowable when they are evidence-informed, such as deflection to treatment or embedded co-responders who can move a person from crisis to care. The challenge, and the standard, is demonstration: What is the program? How are outcomes measured? Can the jurisdiction show that the asset is integral to a listed strategy rather than to general patrol or property-crime suppression?
The distinction is practical, not pedantic. A vehicle assigned to a co-responder unit with documented transports to treatment is a different proposition than a marked SUV added to the general fleet. Likewise, a data system that supports overdose mapping, real-time outreach, or diversion case management is categorically different from a plate-reader network deployed for broad crime control. Settlement compliance turns on those specifics.
Washington Township spent opioid settlement funds on license plate cams, police SUVs, according to https://t.co/L0lJyHE8sK investigation https://t.co/AO2ZKFFDkz pic.twitter.com/OC2gEhc4PC
— The Philadelphia Inquirer (@PhillyInquirer) October 9, 2026
What credible stewardship looks like
Jurisdictions that keep faith with the settlements tend to do a few things well. They publish detailed spending plans tied to authorized strategies; they maintain separate opioid accounts with clean ledgers; they solicit public health expertise, not just public safety perspectives, in their advisory bodies; and they report outcomes, not only outputs. In practice, that means documenting how many overdoses were reversed, how many individuals initiated or maintained medication-assisted treatment, how many housing placements were stabilized—not simply tallying equipment purchased or training hours logged. It also means being explicit when assets with police uses are nonetheless critical to an approved remediation program: who uses them, how often, and to what measurable effect.
Why Washington Township became a flashpoint
Washington Township’s situation triggered attention because the purchases were concrete, visible, and easily understood—Tahoes and cameras—while the asserted programmatic justifications were abstract. New Jersey’s guidance emphasizes opioid-use-disorder remediation; a respected public-health voice dismissed plate readers as off-mission; and the mirrored dollar figure reported to the state suggested compliance artifice rather than substance. Put together, those elements read less like a close call and more like a misalignment between the funds’ purpose and the spending choices. It is a cautionary tale for any municipality tempted to retrofit routine acquisitions into opioid strategies after the fact.
Sources:
nypost.com, inquirer.com, nj.com, hoodline.com, opioidaudit.com, reddit.com, nj.gov
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