Municipal Training & Technical Assistance Resources

Cities and towns across Massachusetts have a powerful opportunity to invest opioid settlement funds to prevent overdose and support community healing. This page offers practical tools, guidance, and training resources to help you make the most of opioid settlement funds intended for municipal abatement efforts. Submit a request for municipal TTA. If you have questions, contact us at muniTTA@rizema.org. 

What’s the Difference Between Abatement Funds and Settlement Funds?
We often use both “settlement” and “abatement” when talking about opioid funds, but they have distinct meanings.

Settlement funds are dollars that companies from the opioid industry have agreed to pay out for their role in the overdose crisis. This term encompasses the total amount of money that states, counties, and municipalities will receive from settlement agreements. At Mosaic, we aim to ensure these funds reach the communities most deeply impacted through grants to nonprofits, community-based organizations, municipalities, and others working on the front lines.

In the context of opioid settlements, abatement refers explicitly to actions and strategies designed to reduce the harm caused by the opioid crisis, including those designed to reduce opioid misuse, treat opioid use disorder (OUD) and related disorders, and mitigate the ongoing effects that the overdose crisis has on individuals, families and communities. When we talk about our municipal training and technical assistance program, for example, we refer to “abatement funds” because they are being used in a targeted way to fund programs across the Commonwealth.