The Birmingham City Council on Tuesday voted to put more than $200,000 of opioid settlement money toward pursuing civil penalties and nuisance abatement measures for homes involved in drug activity.

City staff told the council that the $256,379 came from one of the three settlements with pharmaceutical providers who’ve contributed to the proliferation of opioid abuse. The council in March 2023 voted to enter into a settlement agreement intended to resolve class action litigation brought by states and municipalities against those companies.

The council on Tuesday voted to move the money to the city attorney’s office. It will pay for training, attorneys and staff for the city’s new drug nuisance abatement program, according to city attorney Nicole King.

Mayor Randall Woodfin announced the program in July. Birmingham authorities will work to bring civil penalties against the owners of the properties that house criminal activities. That could include a fine of up to $50,000 or declaring the home a nuisance property.

The drug nuisance abatement project comes in response to rising homicide rates in Birmingham. With investigators working against a culture of silence among many in the city, the new program will help put pressure on offenders, according to the mayor.

“What we’ve got to do is turn the heat up on everybody. Everybody gets attention,” Woodfin said in July.

During Tuesday’s meeting, council members agreed that the abatement program is a good use of the settlement money. However, councilor Carol Clarke asked when the body would get a look at the agreement signed by the mayor so they could get an idea of how the total funds will be used.

“We don’t have a sense of the overall strategy so it’s just concerning,” she said.

The mayor’s staff told Clarke that the council will get an in-depth memorandum at its next retreat, which had not been scheduled as of Tuesday. Such retreats are not usually open to the public, with officials claiming they are allowable under the Alabama Open Meetings Act since they fall under the auspices of training or briefings.

Alabama alone has secured more than $728 million in settlements from health care and drug companies, according to an online post from the Beasley Allen law firm.

In 2021, Alabama had 1,408 drug overdose deaths, with 981 of those being opioid related. That’s up from 1,029 and 611, respectively, in the previous year, according to a 2023 report from the Alabama Opioid Overdose and Addiction Council.

For Jefferson County, opioid deaths have increased since 2018, in which 172 people died from either illicit or prescription opioids, according to an annual report from the Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiner’s Office. In 2023, that number was 411.