South Dakota counties and cities that received the first $9.6 million of national opioid settlement money have spent less than half of it, according to Department of Social Services spending reports through the end of 2025. While 41 South Dakotans died from opioid overdoses last year – up from 39 in 2024 – some officials from those 53 counties and 13 cities said they haven’t yet made plans on how to use the distributions, which began in late 2022. In 2021, a combined nearly $50 billion in