November 25 Safety & Security Committee - Nov 25, 2025

meeting

Fairfax County Board Committees 1h 31m 5 speakers 8 agenda items transcribed 2 days ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the purpose of the November 25 Safety & Security Committee meeting?

Rodney L. Lusk 0:02

Morning everyone. I'm gonna call the uh safety and security meeting to order and uh delighted that we have uh a number of folks here today for our presentations. Um our first presentation uh will be an update on the opioid settlement implementation, so really excited to hear uh from the staff and uh those who are engaged in this uh discussion. And um following that we will have a presentation uh that will be provided by the sheriff's office. talking about some of their staffing and other uh issues uh as it relates to their detention facility, uh the courts and civil enforcement. So we will also look forward uh to that presentation um before um um our adjournment. So with our first item I'd like to welcome uh Ellen

Rodney L. Lusk 0:55

Volo, who I believe will be the lead for this uh discussion topic, and we'll have uh support from other members of the staff and the community services board and the sheriff's office and others. So I will turn it over to Ellen Volvo at this point. Thank you.

Ellen Volo 1:13

Good morning, thank you. And we'll just begin uh with introductions. So Ellen Volo, Fairfax County Opioid Response Manager.

Darrell Washington 1:22

Darrell Washington, Executive Director of the Fairfax False Church Community Services Board.

Christopher Carroll 1:27

Casey Lingon, Chief Deputy, um with the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office over the administration.

Sarah Gary 1:34

Sarah Gary, Division Director for Jail and Court Based Services with the C S B.

Mike Axler 1:40

Good morning, Doctor Mike Axler, uh Director of Intervention and Prevention Services for Fairfax County Public Schools.

Ellen Volo 1:47

So good morning. I'll begin today with a few updates um on some key information and then turn it over to the team to kind of highlight the projects that are being funded with opioid settlement dollars.

Unknown 1:58

Okay so.

Ellen Volo 2:00

There we go. So as board members may recall, the county has had these guiding principles in place for using opioid settlement dollars for a couple years now. And I really want to highlight here that the county, um, in large part, thanks to the board's prioritization, investment in the opioid in addressing the opioid epidemic, really for several years now. Um it's really created a very strong foundation. That has allowed the county to move forward on acting on these principles fairly quickly and more quickly than many other jurisdictions. So turning now to um you know, the local opioid overdose trends, because all of this work of course happens in the context of what's going on in the community. There's a couple key points to make here.

Ellen Volo 2:44

Um, first is that the eight projects that the county has funded so far with opioid settlement funds, they were identified back in 2023. Um and board members may recall that that was a year where we saw very high numbers of opioid overdoses both in Fairfax and throughout the nation. Um and in Fairfax, especially among the youth age range, the zero to seventeen age range. And so several of the projects funded with opioid settlement funds really target that age group. So fast forward to today, um, like The nation in fi in the Fairfax Health District we're seeing opioid overdoses continue to decline. And in Fairfax, the numbers that we're seeing in that zero to seventeen age range have sharply declined, which is very encouraging.

Ellen Volo 3:30

Сотерні наути фондс до опіселен фонд з авела. Um as board members may know, the funds kind of fall into three different buckets. Um, so the direct distribution funds are the opioid settlement funds that come directly to the county. And so far through the end of FY25, the county's received about 7 million and um has allocated about 2.6. Since that initial allocation of funds, more settlements have reached payment phase. The projected future year payments have also increased. And so that's reduced the need to reserve all of those funds for kind of future year expenses of recurring projects. And so today we'll be talking about a recommendation to allocate an additional $2.2 million.

Ellen Volo 4:15

Um, to some of the projects that have already been funded, as well as some other opportunities on the horizon. Now there's also funds that flow to the opioid abatement authority that the county is eligible to apply for.